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

It's not just the bushings that get blown apart. It's also the d-ring mount itself. Poly bushings last about a week on my rig. They tend to crack rather then move with the abuse. For that reason I use good old rubber bushings on the steering rack. They break as well but take at least 3 weeks to get destroyed. Pay to play. lol

 

So far my mounts have remained intact. I'm curious on how my bushings will look when I take them out.

What about the two other sleeve style ones? Do those end up with the same fate? or is it largely the D-ring one.

 

The sleeve ones seem to fair much better. The D-Ring gets beat to shit because it's the furthest away from the other two. Leverage is a bitch.

 

Leverage and 35's are a bitch lol

 

It's not the 35's fault. Plenty of guys run them and don't break shit. It's Johnson Valley's fault. That place is the real deal. lol

 

CS144 from a Cadillac. I think they peak at 120, idle around 80.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/cs144-swap-q-as.268008/

It’s less about output of your alternator from what I’ve read and more about the ability for AGM and liquid lead acid batteries to accept the charge. Lead acid typically slows down the charge rate once the battery reaches 75% ccharge and then very slowly charged the rest, most likely never getting back to 100%, which explains why I was always fighting to keep my fridge running on long times sitting stationary, because the battery was never full to begin with.

The only way to really top them off is with a charger optimized for them, most of the issue being alternators don’t put out the voltage to get the batteries to take a charge - I’m not electrically savvy, so this is just from what I understand that the alternator doesn’t put out the voltage of like 14.5 volts, so amps mean very little

https://redarcelectronics.com/blogs/blog/choosing-the-best-vehicle-battery-charger

If I switch to lithium iron phosphate (they do make 50ah lithium batts they exact size of a Odyssey PC 1200 so I can keep my mounting points the same) I may get a DC to DC charger like a Redarc which also has a built in mppt charge controller for solar all neatly packaged in an ip68 package that prioritizes solar before the alternator for the most efficient charge and smart charges so it won’t cook your alternator which is an issue when charging lithium batteries because they take a charge so efficiently the alternator overheats.

$125 NOCO Genius GENPRO10X1, 1-Bank, 10A (10A/Bank) Smart Marine Battery Charger, 12V Waterproof Onboard Boat Charger, Battery Maintainer and Desulfator for AGM, Lithium (LiFePO4) and Deep-Cycle Batteries

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08G3M697...MI5aejhfHW7wIVYh-tBh2SCghpEAAYASABEgLXnvD_BwE

I went with the 10x1 (hooks to 1 battery) instead of a 5x2 (hooks to 2 batteries) because you can basically link your batteries with an ml acr and charge them both at the same rate or force them apart and just charge the house battery since the starting battery usually is discharged much less.

It’s more than double the cost to do a 10x2, which makes sense since you’re charging at 20 amps

 

And one other helpful piece of info for the Noco charger I used- it only comes with hardwired battery terminal eyelets so it’s intended to be mounted, whereas a lot of their other chargers come with a plug to use alligator clips or terminal eyelets so you can store it elsewhere.

The one I got is ip68, I wanted something as resilient as possible

 

I like you. Lol

 

If I understand this correctly, it still has to be plugged into the AC power to do its job doesn't it?

 

Yessir, useless otherwise

 

Ok. That makes more sense now. I was trying to figure what the advantage was, and its the convenience of the permanent mounting, at least for one battery.

It is true that AGM types need a higher voltage (more than 14.3 VDC to get fully topped off, And yeah, even the CS144 alt can fall a little short at times, though mine always starts off at 14.6 but then tappers off. So cruising down the highway, it is always less than that.

My fix was similar, just not a permanent install. I have a CTEK smart charger I've used for several years. I have not felt the need to permanently mount is as I like to use it to 'condition' both of my Northstar AGMs every so often.

CTEK (56-864) MUS 4.3 12 Volt Fully Automatic 8 Step Battery Charger

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006G14FK8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8

 

Is there a better alternative to the cs144 alternator that does work better for agm batteries?

 

I did a voltage boosting fuse for mine which increases the charging voltage to a higher, more agm friendly value.

 

Oh yeah I remember you sending me that link, it was sold out at the time. Send it again !

 

https://www.hkbelect.com/product/24...nic-fuse-version-micro-blade-compatible-2000/

It's still sold out, but you can achieve the same thing with a diode.
I think there are other voltage boosting fuse options out there, just not with the same self-resetting feature as that one.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/agm-battery-charging-alternator-voltage-booster.611314/

 

I'm too old for this, crawling under my truck, hard concrete, back cracking BS anymore. My son makes me feel young and dumb again. I sure pay for it later.

 

The CS144 works great with my dual AGM batteries.

 

2nd and 3rd gen alts are designed with fuel economy in mind. Basically a voltage on demand type of system. That device you linked to is helpful for them to overcome their voltage producing limitations. The CS144 alt doesn't have the voltage limitations found with 2nd and 3rd gen OEM alternators.

 

Yeah, I wish it had a disconnect and didn’t need to be hard mounted, just didn’t look far enough into it and after I was into it I was too cheap to send the thing back. I don’t like the room it takes up, but it has its benefits, even a little like shore power if all I’m doing is running my fridge

That’s a good solution, if upsizing fusing is a cheap hack to get more out of it that’d be awesome.

 

Yea the ECU plays a roll in charging with 3rd gens, but I'm pretty sure that the 2nd gen charging system isn't that much different than ours with respect to the voltage output & circuit logic.

The voltage boosting fuse is still applicable for us though. According to optima (the battery I have), ideal max charging voltage is 15V. So it'll get charged quicker & stay more "topped off" with a voltage closer to that. And the stock alternator output voltage is far from that.

I have my OEM alternator though, so can't speak too much to the CS144 side of it. I would imagine that the fuse would still help though based on the results you posted in your previous post of peak 14.6V on startup & lower after that.