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

Good to know Northstar is still around under this name. I figured they had been absorbed with the pandemic. There is a BatteriesPlus store in San Jose - about 30 miles away. I ordered the CTek so we'll see if there is a difference from the NOCO.

Thx all

 

Electric and lighting guru crashnburn80 has declared Northstar the best buy here: The NorthStar AGM Battery + Voltage Booster Upgrade

He just wrote about installing one (with a voltage booster) in his 1st gen here: Crashnburn80's 1st Gen TRD Double Cab Build

 

Thanks, I'll take a look at his notes re: the v booster. I'm not entirely sold on what I read about it back in 2019 but will revisit.

As for it being one of the best out there, why I bought one back in Group Buy 09

 

I've killed two 27Fs in a years time. Not saying it's the batteries fault but my shitbox is doing something to them that they don't like.

My batteries would have passed those questions you asked. You really need to have a load on them to tell they were bad. Connect a meter to the battery and set it to display the minimum and then crank it over.

 

Northstar is owned by the same company as oddessy now. Pretty sure the x2, ody and Northstar are all the same battery now

 

Interesting enough on the product page for the 40-206 CTEK charger, there is a question about using the de-sulphate option with AGM batts. The CETEK rep replied back that AGM batts do not sulphate and this option wouldn't do anything.



I'm still going to give the CTEK charger a shot over the NOCO I have now. Thx again for the info on the charger.

 

This. For a starting battery, the voltage drop while cranking is my go to test. I've seen too many batteries that held a charge just fine, but couldn't handle a start.

Sulphation is how lead acid batteries work. Without it you couldn't get power from them. If you leave any lead acid battery (wet, AGM, or gel) idle long enough, the sulphation hardens into big crystals and you have problems.
Equalization is better for most batteries because it helps dissolve the sulphation better than a normal charge, but it doesn't work once this happens, which is why desulphation is getting more popular.
Desulphation is not violent for a battery, though, so the person who asked that question needn't worry about it. It's just a pulse that knocks the crystals off the plates.

 

I'm not sure a completely agree with that statement. From what I've read, sulphation can happen in an AGM type battery.

https://batteryhint.com/can-you-desulfate-an-agm-battery/

https://lifelinebatteries.com/blog/...aintain-your-agm-battery-and-keep-it-durable/

I've also read that AGMs are susceptible to low voltage charging. They really like/need a charging voltage higher than what most of our alternators can provide. Over time charging at 14.1 or lower can limit the batteries capacity. That can be demonstrated, at least partially, by the batteries resting voltage. That was one of the reasons I asked you about what yours was.

One of the features of the cTek charger that I really like is that it will charge at 14.7VDC in the 4th phase of the AGM charging cycle. I have found that after running this cycle, my batteries will hold a high charge for a longer period. And they seem to like it. They are as strong as ever, approaching 7 years of very demanding use.

 

Cool. Will check both of those out. I was just reading this - https://batteryreconditionfixes.com/agm-battery-desulfation-all-you-need-to-know/.
Not trying to drag AGM chat out or anything so apologies to the thread. Ultimately I think the NOCO hasn't helped and may have damaged it. Seeing a bunch of posts (off TW) talking about how it quickly shoots up an AGM and then settles at about 12.7-12.8 while finishing the charge before settling into its maintenance mode.

Looking forward to seeing how the CTEK handles it. As for the batt itself, it has never failed to start the engine and in fact it fires right up. What my concern was is after a full charge and leaving it on the NOCO for a few days, I could take it off and without any activity at all it could be down to 12.3 - 12.5v a few days later.

 

New water pump, timing belt, accessory belts, radiator and heater hoses, koyo rad radiator, fan clutch, ac idler pulley, fan pulley bracket, new battery, new fluid in the gear boxes, fresh oil change and started cleaning up my wiring. Not convinced I’m going to keep the negative busbar terminal. I would like to have a single ground going to the battery so I can disconnect it quickly in an emergency. Haven't figured out how to mount my bussbar exactly yet though.

took my old alternator, power steering and ac belts and zip tied them under the hood as trail spares

installed a prinsu roof rack to make the all the 3rd gen guys jealous. Modified how it mounts to get rid of the 1” spacers that came with it. I think it looks way better sitting right down on the cab.

Continuing to work on my wiring to get some of the “temporary” stuff cleaned up. Got to finish welding up my driver side slider so I can paint it and then weld it onto the frame. Also have a viair 2.5 gallon tank that i have to figure out the plumbing for.

 

Funny, I just picked one of these up a week ago and it's sitting on the desk. Definitely seems like a better option than the DD to me, given the ease of adjustment. Zane - are you actually running one of these? I'd have thought that you wouldn't give a damn about your speedo being off a bit.

Not sure when mine will actually go in. I'd like it to be soon, but it'll probably be a few more weeks given everything that's going on. Plus, even though it's not needed for this lutzauto gadget, I gotta pull the t-case to fix the seal on the transmission, so I'll make myself do that at the same time.

 

I have a cable speedometer, but I put a Land cruiser digital sender on so I could feed speed data to the haltech. I don't have one of those devices on though because I can change the readout at the haltech which changes it at the dash. I just wanted to be able to do boost by gear and you can't do a gear calculation without road speed and engine RPM. I do have two Land cruiser friends running those boxes though, they're easy as pie to set up and then you can pretty much just ignore them forever after you get it dialed in.

 

I just installed a dakota digital and it was extremely easy if you know how to use a multimeter. The hardest part was figuring out which wire was the speedo. Adjusting was a matter of holding a constant speed and then pressing the plus or minus button until the speed matched the gps.

 

How’s the output? Are you happy with them so far?

 

Yea I have the DD as well on mine and it wasn't too bad to install. The one I have is the 100 version or whatever it's called so I can also correct my tach since I have a cluster from a v6 on my 4cyl. Can control it from your phone via bluetooth so easy to do while driving.

 

were the leafs on the extended cabs any different from the regular cabs? different length? different spring rate? or identical? what about double cabs?

 

I haven't turned them on yet. The sidemarkers and blinkers came with bulbs. I swapped my old bulbs into the new lamps. It came with a pre-wired harness where all three are hooked up on the right circuits so I don't have to do any jerry-rigged wiring to make the LEDs work. At least thats what I expect, haven't turned em on yet. We'll see when I put my fuses and such back in and crank it up. Not planning to do that till I get my new fuel filter in a few weeks.

 

You can only use 95.5-97 unless you weld new mounts I believe

on your 95 anyway

 

Depends on model years. Springs from '95.5-'97s are different (shorter) than springs from '98-'04.

 

So, 98-04 springs will fit regular and ext cab trucks?