TL;DR - the alternator failed as I was about 90 minutes from home, and it was because the brushes had worn out. Luckily, I was carrying a spare set and swapped them in about an hour, completely fixing the issue. Unlike many of the topics in a rig review, where…
Leave a CommentMods and Maintenance: Electrical System (12v)
TL;DR - I've replaced my Bussmann fuse/relay box because the old one melted around some of the connectors. This issue has been ongoing for a while, but initially I didn't understand what was going on. Initially, I thought that I was having a problem with my HID-modified Hellas (see previous…
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TL;DR - My Hella's are working again, and the problem wasn't the Hella's or the HID upgrade at all. It was my Bussmann relay/fuse block. After my previous fiddling with the Hella's, I decided to take a closer look at the rest of the circuitry for them when I was…
Leave a CommentTL;DR - My Hella's are working less and less now; I'm biding my time until the end of the year, when I hear that Diode Dynamics may have something fun coming. I originally thought that my HIDs in the 7" Hella 700s were not turning on because there was a…
Leave a CommentTL;DR - Everything is working again. I replaced one of my Fiaam Freeway Blasters - that wasn't working at all - with the original horn, which I'd saved for some reason when I replaced it. Everything seems to be working again - albeit not quite so loudly - and no…
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TL;DR - I need to figure out why my Hella's don't come on all the time. Low priority though for me right now. I noticed on this last trip (or at least recently) that the Hella's - into which I installed HIDs - don't always come on when power is…
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TL;DR - I think there's a short in one of my horns. On my last couple of trips, I've noticed something strange. The first time, I was honking my horn at a couple of cows and suddenly everything went quiet - the horns had stopped working! I was pretty sure…
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The plan with the 4Runner was always to keep it a little bit more tame than the Tacoma. After all, it's our family adventure vehicle - used mostly for home-base-style camping, and less for prolonged driving adventures. But, some systems need to work in both vehicles - and the fridge…
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I just got done camping in one spot for three days. Temps were in the high 80's, the ARB 50qt fridge was set to 35ºF, and the 175W inverter was running much of the time charging various electronic devices. The whole time, I didn't start the truck once. A couple…
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TL;DR - The (warranty) replacement battery is working great! Not much more to say about that - here was the write-up where I replaced the faulty battery. Props to Mike over at GPCarAudio for great customer service.
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On our last trip to the Eastern Mojave, one of the things I noted early in the trip - actually, before the trip even started really - was that the battery in the cab seemed low. I chalked it up to an error on my side and figured that the…
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TL;DR - Even with relatively cool days and nights, something was wrong with my house battery. Need to investigate. I have a confession to make - a few days before departure, I left the ignition on in the truck overnight, and that meant that the radio, clock, and maybe a…
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It's not natural. It's uncomfortable. It's hard. And, I know it's the right thing to do - I want to find a way to cut some weight off of the Tacoma. When I purchased the truck, Toyota listed the curb weight of a 4WD SR5 V6 Xtracab at something right…
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TL;DR - the dual battery system is working amazingly great. It was extremely nice to not have to worry about powering the fridge, even when the overnight temps were in the 50°F's. The dual battery setup I recently built worked flawlessly, and the plywood cabinet hasn't rattled apart into a…
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Well, this post is a long time in the making. In fact, I assumed this was a project I'd get taken care of in the dead of winter, since much of it would be done in the wood shop, and none of it required the truck to be outside in…
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TL;DR - Though it's a great battery, my days of running a single Group 24F Toyota TrueStart battery are numbered; I'm moving to a dual battery system. And, I can no longer recommend the DBPOWER 600A 18000mAh Portable Car Jump Starter, since it failed to start my truck when I had a dead…
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April 2017. Wires everywhere. That’s how it’s starting to feel with the various accessories that I’ve added to the truck. Sure, I tuck them away here, and zip-tie them away there to try to clean things up, but in the end I still have several pair of wires running from…
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October 9, 2016. When the winch was installed, it was obviously wired right up to the battery - this made a lot of sense, since it was easy, allowed us to get it spooled up, and is of course the way Warn recommends installing it. But I wanted something better.…
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May 2015. Summer's here and we decided to go camping at our super-secret-undisclosed-location-that-you-have-to-rush-to-or-someone-else-will-get-there-first. While there, we had a great time, including an epic fire that was bigger than our daughter. But being four years old, and sitting in the back seat for three hours each direction, @mini.turbodb understandably got bored…
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