What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

The Door Ding from Hell . . . has been repaired, well except for the missing SR5 badge and minus the detail they were supposed to do the rest of the truck and the truck was filthy when I picked it up and had been sitting outside the entire time and [drum roll please] was driven almost 50 miles while they had it. I'm just glad my $1000 sound system was still there. It was sitting out against the street unlocked when I got there to pick it up. To anyone interested, you could lift the Kenwood amps and compact subs from under my seats in, I'm guessing, about 15-20 secs . . . when it is sitting unlocked backed up to a busy street that is.

The repair seems adequate but I'm waffling on the 10 customer satisfaction survey response being held hostage in lieu of getting the SR5 badge and the detail job completed. Thinking maybe I'll just go pick up the SR5 badge, put it on myself, detail it myself [as usual], and give them a 3. Too generous?


After [white at the bottom is some reflection]

 

Yep, ИH-18 tubes fresh from Ukraine. I think it’s stamped CCCP/USSR on the back. I assembled the PCB from a kit myself. Ordered it from a guy in the UK. So much soldering...

Can’t believe how expensive those tubes are. I had one burn out and it was like $80 for a used replacement. They only were used mainly in scientific and medical equipment before LCD’s came around.

You know I never noticed how hot it can get. That being said I’ve never had the need to feel how hot the transmission tunnel floor pan is. Lol.

Part of me wants to install a tranny cooler, but I don’t know.

Anyone know about getting a transmission temperature readout on a Scangauge on pre-2001 trucks? I heard the sensor changed sometime during that model revision. I programmed the ATF temp sensor but it was telling me it was -39.8 degrees Fahrenheit, which made no sense.

 

Just went for a more than spirited drive. Truck is almost bipolar with the SC lately. Sometimes I can just fly, had a nice 30-80 pull that held me in the seat and the timing stayed competitive under boost 13-18degrees of advance. Then not even 10 seconds layer after slowing down to try again I could not repeat it, and it wanted to drop the timing into the single digits. Makes me wonder if I have a fuel pump that's struggling to keep up or something as well. I know the meth is going to help but I can help but shake the feeling that it should be able to deal with 6psi without that as a crutch. Plenty of 3rz running more with just the stock ECU. So I guess I'll be putting a 320lph pump in too. Might clean my spare MAF and swap it in too just for gits and shiggles.

 

Yeah mine have the CCCP markings too. Made in Rovno, Ukraine by Gazotron Tubes Co. during the USSR years. I love their glow. I have a bunch of IN-12 laying around too but haven't built anything for them. I have a couple American ones from Burroughs too but they're orange tinted glass which is less visually pleasing.

Also a tranny cooler is a nice addition especially since the 4 banger basically has to run around without locking the TC most of the time.

 

Wish they came back into style. They're so steampunk-hipster looking. They're driven by some mad high voltage, I think it was around 200v?

I also have a fan controller that uses IN-4 tubes for my PC. Cool as hell, but they all burned out. Stock image, because mine are all dead.

 

Yeah gotta have around 210 volts but almost no amperage. I made a power supply for one with old disposable camera flsah parts. Ran on two AA. Just need a dc-dc step up transformer. I'm gonna guess the ones in your fan controller were PWM controlled, they don't like that, they much rather have clean analog switched dc voltage than some ic controlled "unclean" power.

 

If you look at the second picture of the bottom of the board you can see the high voltage daughterboard. It uses a HV5812 IC and a couple capacitors to create the high voltage charge. Guessing the fan controller uses the same kind of IC because it’s so compact.

The clock is quiet, I’ll give it that. The last board I had from the same manufacturer always had this loud droning high pitched squeal, this one doesn’t. Almost sounded like coil whine.

Part of me wants to make a mini tube clock for where the stock VFD clock goes on the dashboard.

I still can’t get over how badly placed the stock clock is. Why couldn’t they follow the 4Runner design?

 

I don't use my dash clock much, stereo is more convenient. Especially since the IS300 wheel is in the way. Just can't think if what else to put there since it is so hard to see, pointless to put a gauge there.

 

I see people put switches in there, but I was never a fan of how it looked. I mean I would just look at my stereo, but I couldn’t even see it during the day because of the glare from the sun.

If I’m going to be doing switches, I’m going to find a way to do an overhead console.

 

We have a Salt River reservoir system that supplies a lot of water also.

 

I tried for a long time to get the trans temp on my 99 and it just doesn't report it to the OBD system. Some trucks will however. I never figured out what changed between certain models.
This is the info:
ECU address or Header: 0

ModeandPID: 01B4
Formula: A*(9/5)-38
Min Value: 0
Max Value: 300
Description: (I used TFT, but you can put in whatever you like)
Unit: F (if you want, you can put in the degree sign so it's °F).

01B4 is the important part. I know there is more stuff you need for the scanguage but just google that and you will find it.

 

Did they have to pull the dash to fix the leak?

 

New Rack and Pinion

 

So what are these things? What do they do? They look cool

 

They’re Soviet made cold cathode vacuum tubes (aka Nixie Tubes) It has a series of digits (0-9) that glow red when a high voltage charge is introduced (around 200v).
The vacuum tubes are charged with an inert gas, such as Argon, and creates an electrical field internally.

These were what things like calculators, medical equipment, and scientific equipment used to display numbers before the invention of modern LCD’s and VFD’s. The clock in our truck is very similar to how the Nixie tubes operated, those clocks are VFD’s or Vacuum Flourescent Displays.

They went obsolete in the early 1980’s. They were used in the 1950’s through the 1970’s. The Soviet Union were the biggest producer of these tubes, which is why most of them are stamped CCCP on the back.

 

Super cool!

 

No, if you loosen the dash brace you can remove the blower box and evaporator box through the glove box area.

 

All of this really has me not looking forward to tackling my AC problems. But I def need to this year. I miss it.

 

About to wash and store the tacoma in the garage, need to be driving a more gas efficient vehicle for the time being.

 

This sucks truck is still in the shop and it's driving me up a wall. It's been 2 weeks now I'm tired of driving a automatic and not having my own vehicle. Maybe I should of invited Monte over and pay him a "all you can eat buffet" Rant over

Sorry about that, guess i'll look at some fun mods/ parts for it when I get it back