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The LS400 has two ride height sensors, one on the rear right wheel, the other on the front right wheel. It is a simple potentiometer with a crank attached. A small rod with a ball joint at each end connects the crank to the suspension arm. As the suspension arm moves up and down, the rod turns the crank. A computer calculates the difference between the front and rear sensors, and uses this to adjust the aim of the headlamps up and down.

The connecting rod on my car's rear sensor had seized up and rusted to bits. Lexus don't sell the rod separately, you have to buy the complete sensor at something like £400. Rather than go down that route, I decided to construct a replacement rod.

I created a diagram of the part I needed.

LS400 rear ride height sensor (PDF version)

I sent the diagram to SGS Engineering. Incidentally SGS can also re-gas your bonnet and boot struts. In fact I posted the diagram of the part to SGS along with my bonnet struts. Before getting them re-gassed, the mechanic at the garage where I get my car serviced used to complain he had to prop the bonnet open with an old broom handle. After they were re-gassed he commented "Blimey, your bonnet's a bit urgent!".

SGS constructed the perfect replacement rod. I spoke to them on the phone so I don't have a record of how much they charged for the rod, but it wasn't very expensive.

Fitting the rod was pretty easy, all you need to do is jack up the rear right corner of the car, remove the wheel for access, and bolt the new rod into place.

I had to get my headlamp levels adjusted afterwards. The problem was that the rod had rusted through years ago, leaving the sensor arm at the lowest position (indicating that the rear of the car was really high). Over the years during servicing the headlamps had been manually adjusted to level them out at that setting. When the rod was replaced it suddenly seemed to the car as if the rear was really low, so it dipped the headlamps to compensate. This meant that my headlamps were virtually pointing straight down. Not very good for visibility, but at least it wasn't dazzling other motorists.

There follows some pictures of the new rod in place. As you can see, SGS did a really neat job with the new rod.

Once the surface mount bulbs have been desoldered from the circuit board, they can be "repaired" by replacing the bulb part of them with a brand new bulb. I used product code BT43 from Maplin.

The surface mount bulbs consist of a small black plastic carrier to hold the bulb, and a translucent green rubber cap over the top of the bulb. The rubber cap just pulls off, then the bulb can be removed from the holder by cutting the wires.

Thread the wires from the new bulb into the holder and seat the bulb in the same position the old one was in. Then route the wires out to the sides of the holder, and up the sides. Cut off the excess.

Tin the wires with solder, then replace the green rubber cap and solder the bulbs back into place. This is quite tricky if the bulb is one of the ones sitting under the light guides for the display. The ones for switch illumination should be quite straightforward as there are no access problems.

Here are some renderings of the bulb. The replacement bulbs from Maplin are slightly taller but still fit OK.

Before you start, disconnect the battery negative terminal.

Next, remove the air vents at the top of the console. There is a clip on either side, you need to push a flat headed screwdriver in through the vent on each side to disengage the clips. I will take a photo of this at some point. Once you've pulled the vents out, disconnect the hazard warning light switch connection.

The gear lever surround has to go next. It's held in by 6 clips, 3 down each side. Starting at the end nearest the cup holders, gently pry it up on each side. The next pair of clips are about level with the Park position of the gear lever. Pry it up carefully around there. Finally the last two are in the top corners. You can lift up the whole piece and wiggle it left and right to pop these. Move the gear lever out of the way (make sure the handbrake is on and press the override button), then unplug the pair of cables going to the switches.

Next there are four 10mm hex bolts / philips screws to remove, and a plastic clip which is pretty hard to pry out. In the next photo the clip position is marked by the green circle (I've already pried it out) and the bottom two bolts are marked by the red circles. The following picture shows the top two bolts.

After removing the bolts, the whole centre console can be pulled forwards so you can disconnect the cables. They are in bunches, but there are two plugs at the top, three in the middle, and four at the bottom. Each one has a clip that you need to squeeze while you unplug it. All except the radio aerial cable, that just pulls out.

Once the console is removed, you can reconnect the car battery, lock the car, and retreat indoors with the console. It's surprisingly heavy.

Apologies for the childish table protector in the following pictures!

You need to remove the side brackets first. 4 8mm hex bolts (circled red) and one philips self-tapper (marked blue) on each side.

Once they are removed the console separates into three - the radio/cassette part, the main screen part, and a plastic lump off the back (I think that controls the air conditioning but I might be wrong).

Now remove the two countersunk philips screws from each side of the bezel.

Next you need to remove the top plate off the main section. Six pan head philips screws (red) and two more countersunk (green).

With the top panel out of the way, you can access the ribbon cables connecting the front panel. Each has a small PCB mounting socket. You need to pry up each side of the socket about 2-3mm to release the cable. After that they should unplug very easily. If there is any tension in them, you haven't released the sockets properly.

With the ribbon cables unplugged, the front section can be removed. There are some plastic clips on each side and underneath. Pry those over the metal clips, then remove the front bezel.

Now we need to remove the touchscreen assembly. This is held on by two small screws. Be careful unscrewing them, they screw into quite delicate long standoffs.

With those screws removed, the touchscreen just lifts out of the way.

The front panel PCB is held in by nine screws.

Flip the PCB away from the front panel. Now you can inspect the bulbs which you need to replace.

If you need to remove the metal shields covering the displays, there are metal tabs pushed through the PCB that you need to straighten with pliers.

The two blown bulbs in mine were the ones behind the temperature displays.

Because I didn't have any suitable bulbs (I was expecting to find LEDs) I soldered a couple of wires in place of one of the bulbs, then reassembled everything and put the console back in the car. I measured 8.3v with the engine running and daytime illumination, and 5.3v with nighttime illumination. I've concluded that they are probably 12v "grain of wheat" bulbs. I've placed an order for some, and will conclude this article when they arrive.

I've been taking stuff apart since I was about 4 years old, so I've picked up a few tips over the years. You might think that it's pretty easy to screw a screw back into the hole it came out of. What you need to be careful of with self tapping screws is that there's nothing they'd like better than to cut a brand new thread when you screw them back in. This weakens the part. What you need to do instead is put the screw in the hole, then screw slowly anticlockwise while gently pushing down, until you feel the screw drop down into its original thread. Then screw it in clockwise as normal.

I need to remove the whole centre console unit of my car to replace a blown LED, but the thing that's been holding my up is the fact that I don't know the 4 digit security code that the previous owner had set.

I worked out a few weeks ago that if you go to the "change code" screen, it starts by asking you what the current code is, and if you get it wrong it just asks you again. So, occasionally at lunchtimes I've been going to the car and entering security codes in blocks of 100, which takes about 5 minutes.

I decided that I'd hop around the complete 10,000 number set rather than starting at 0000 and working my way up linearly. Then today I cracked it - the number was 4270. I had decided to start at 4200 this lunchtime in honour of Douglas Adams.

I did quite well statistically. The 4200-4300 block was only the 13th block of numbers I'd tried.

I had to keep a list so I knew where I'd got up to:

• 0000 - 0100 -- might as well start at the top
• 8700 - 8800 -- start choosing random start points
• 5400 - 5500
• 2600 - 2700
• 3200 - 3300
• 1800 - 1900 -- I wondered if it had been set to a memorable year
• 1900 - 2000
• 2000 - 2100
• 0100 - 0200 -- Next I wondered if it was a date in the form dd/mm
• 0200 - 0300
• 7400 - 7500 -- go back to random start points
• 6100 - 6200
• 4200 - 4270 -- found it! Thanks Douglas!
• Sorry to anyone coming to this worthless page after searching Google for a phone number

If you are a blog stalking car thief you should probably know that the code is not 4270 any more.

I don’t know what the stock Lexus filters are like, but the Puravent ones seem pretty good because they’ve got a layer of carbon granules in them, which absorbs bad smells like diesel fumes etc.

Anyway, the procedure…

Open your glovebox and empty it enough so you can see the removable section at the back. This piece just slides up and out.

Behind it is a white nylon panel on the side of the fan housing. There are two clips on the bottom edge of it, you just squeeze them in and ease the panel out, bottom edge first.

The two pieces look like this:

Once the panels are out of the way you will see the edge of the filter:

Click it down to release it…

…then pull it straight out.

Disgusting!

Push the old filter material out of the frame from the bottom, then insert the new filter and push it down into the edges of the frame. The airflow is down through the dash to the fan, so if there is an airflow arrow on your filter (there is on the Puravent one) then it should point downwards. The picture shows the arrows on the side of the filter before I pushed it down into the frame.

Slide the frame back into the slot and click it up into place. Then replace the nylon panel (3 tabs at the top need inserting, then push it home at the bottom). Finally slot the piece back into the glovebox and put all your stuff back in the glovebox. Apart from those sweet wrappers, you can take this opportunity to stick them in the bin.