LX570 Maintenance How-To - Radiator & Associated Items

April 14, 2023

A couple of days ago, I made a post showing the failure point of the early stock 200 Series Land Cruiser (or LX570 like mine) radiator and the other parts/components (with part numbers) that I intend to replace while doing it. My LX570 is at 150K miles on the dot at the time of doing this maintenance.

I was able to find several videos about replacing the radiator, but some of the other maintenance items that I was trying to tackle (specifically the fan assembly bracket) were pretty hard to find information on.

1. Removing the Fan and and Radiator
• This is probably the best documented part of the entire process. Below is the video that I followed to remove it (remember that the Tundra is essentially the same car as the 200 series underneath)
  
  
  
  
• Here were a couple of notes from the process that I experienced:
• You will have to disconnect transmission lines from the radiator and will therefore lose a little transmission fluid (not to mention what is actually in the radiator at time of removal). To prevent the loss, I actually jammed 1 sharpie in each line to essentially stop the fluid from coming out. After discussing with others, I did not top off transmission as there is very little fluid lost (so long as you are quick in jamming the sharpies in) and residual in the radiator
• Don't underestimate the weight of the radiator; this is a two person job. I was physically under the car pushing while my friend was pulling from above
• If you do your own car maintenance, it's worth buying a pulley removal tool like this. I have done multiple fan clutches and water pumps without one. Trust me when I say, it's worth having one...
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2. Relieving the Tensioner and removing the Serpentine Belt
• I've done this on other cars, so I didn't follow a video to do this
• One note for these two steps is that I struggled to find a diagram of the serpentine belt routing, but was able to eventually find one. 
  
  
  
  
  
• I also took the video below of my LX to make sure I understood the routing for reassembly
  
  
  
  
3. Replace Fan Assembly
• This was probably the hardest part of the job. 3 of the 4 bolts to remove the bracket are SUPER easy and take a maximum of 5 minutes to remove, however the last bolt is a severe pain. Here is the video of my frustration
  
  
  
  
• To remove the last bolt (bottom right) from the engine, you have to disconnect the 2 oil cooling lines shown below in the video
  
  
  
  
• Once I figured out that last bolt, I was able to pull the fan assembly out with no problem at all
  
  
  
  
  
• After inspecting, I feel the pulley was probably fine but I would highly recommend doing it while you're there. If you don't trying to get to it with the radiator in place would be near impossible
• Two additional notes:
• DO NOT REATTACH THOSE LINES FOR THE OIL COOLER UNTIL AFTER YOU DO THE WATER PUMP OR YOU WILL HAVE TO REMOVE THEM AGAIN
• Several of my coolant hoses were extremely hard. If yours are anything like mine, I would advise changing them out as well. I brought my hoses to O'Reily's and we were able to cut new lines to the proper length
  
  
4. Replacing the Water Pump
• TRQ did a great job documenting this process in the video below
  
  
  
  
• In general, this is not hard (especially if you have that pulley removal tool listed in step 1) but does take a variety of different extensions and a little patience to get done
• The biggest callout I have is to make sure you know which bolts go in which hole. Below is an example of how I keep track when removing these from the old water pump
  
  
  
  
  
• One more callout of the Water Pump and Thermostat Housing regarding torque specs. Water pump bolts are 23ft/lbs, thermostat housing are 15ft/lbs
  
  
5. Replace the Thermostat
• I didn't know it at the time, but the easiest time to replace the thermostat is actually while the water pump is out (gives easier access to the bolts that hold the assembly on)
• I spent 30 minutes trying to finagle the old thermostat off and then put the new one on only to realize that the water pump housing still had to be removed...
  
  
  
  
  
• I complained about it yesterday and will complain about it again; it sucks that Toyota provides a PLASTIC part for the thermostat housing. I would love an aftermarket solution or for Toyota to produce a part that won't inevitably break in 10-15 years. It's a flawed design...
  
  
6. Replace Tensioner & Idler Pulleys
• Super simple for the idler pulley. It's a 14mm bolt that with a breaker bar take 3 minutes maximum to replace
  
  
  
  
• The tensioner kind is not as fun to remove. It is 1 14mm bolt and 1 6mm allen head bolt. The allen head likes to strip, so PLEASE be careful removing this bolt. Here is the video for removing it:
  
  
  
  
• Once again, these are not required but you don't want these to fail and have to address at a later time because access is VERY poor
  
  
7. Check for Coolant Valley Leak
• The 5.7 is a near-perfectly designed engine, however note the word "near"
• The Coolant Valley Leak is a somewhat common problem that plagues the 5.7L. With the radiator and associated components removed, now is the best time to check for it
• Essentially it is where the area under the intake and in the V of the engine pools with coolant. The video below shows how to identify the issue and (God forbid you have the problem) how to fix it
  
  
  
  
• Fortunately, I do not have the leak so I will not be trying tackling this job
  
  
8. Reassembly
• Reassembly was straightforward, just make sure to reinstall everything in the same order in which it was removed (just make sure to clean things up before reinstalling, especially the water pump mating surface)
  
• My only note is to make sure that any hoses that are hard or appear potentially defective (like my upper radiator hose shown below), just go ahead and replace it. Like a lot of other things in this article, it's a lot easier to do it now than it would be to do later
  
  
  
  
  
  
9. Burping the Cooling System
• Really no guidance to provide outside of this. Let the Toyota do its thing and you'll be set
  
  

In total, I think that I spent roughly ~8 hours on this project and while my wallet is a bit lighter (about $1,300 in parts), the LX should be good for another 150,000 miles.