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

Ah. gotchya now. Was confused because you used tune in two different ways.

Yeah, sounds like you got a ground/short issue. If you don't have a multimeter, might be helpful to borrow one. Makes checking for shorts via continuity a bit easier. If you were still in the area, I'd swing by and help out. Been wanting an excuse to take a drive through the country side.

 

I have a multimeter. And when I used it last time it was showing continuity between the antenna mount and the frame. Then I ran a ground wire all the way from the antenna mount directly to the battery. This made it work, but I still can't tune it apparently. Makes no sense haha

 

You need to look to see if you've accidentally grounded the antenna.

Here, just start driving this way and I'll start driving that way and I'll get you set up somewhere on the interstate in the middle.

When you say "antenna mount and frame" is the antenna isolated from the mount properly then?

If you can, shoot me a pic of a closeup of the mount. Should have a nylon washer in there somewhere to isolate. PM works. If you have my number, text works too.

The ground cable to the antenna seems odd. Once I see the picture of the mount, I'll probably have a bunch of helpful questions.

 

Yeah, I think the antenna is grounding out to anything it can. Like when it was slightly shocking me every time I touched it at first.

We tested the continuity from the antenna mount to the frame and it was getting a good ground, but it still wasn't working right. So one day I just ran a wire straight from the antenna to the battery and after that it worked, it just wasn't tuned. Now it won't tune at all and stays at around 9.

 

I had issues with my BAMF tailgate antenna mount. Had to drill out the hole because it was contacting the antenna causing a short. This fixed the problem. I'm on my phone, but firestik has a great troubleshooting picture on their site showing where you should have continuity and not. I used it and narrowed it down to my mount. I also had a bad pl-259 connection so I had to re-solder that.

 

It does sound like you have a short between the mount and the stud though. Pretty much any SWR reading above 3 or 4 is a short in the system somewhere.

 

Yeah I found the pic you were talking about. I'll go through tomorrow and check everything out...

 

What happened to me is that little nylon washer has a shoulder on it and it was not sitting inside the hole of the mount properly. So drilling it out fixed that issue. Without doing it, the stud threads would touch the mount causing a stud. And remember not to transmit your radio without an antenna/tuned antenna. You can fry it pretty quick.

 

Installed my new BFG 255/85-16 MT today.

 

Oh, so the actual stud that goes through our antenna mount isn't supposed to touch at all? Like kind of just slide through with the nylon washer and bottom half that connects to the coax only touching the mount?

 

Jesus... What's the tread depth for those things when they're new?

 

18/32nds for that tire size. Mine were 20/32nds new.

 

Pep

 

I don't know? I was just going off of the BFGoodrich website?

His tires he just bought show to be 18/32nds new, my 33x12.50x15's show to be 20/32nds new.

http://www.bfgoodrichtires.com/tire...es/mud-terrain-t-a-km2/tire-details#techspecs

 

Lol @ that meme/Pooh

 

Yeah, who knows. I was just going off of the site haha

Wonder what mine were at brand new...

 

Yes, not supposed to touch at all. Otherwise, if your mount is properly grounded, your entire truck is turning into an antenna and the Little CB That Could is dying trying to drive it.

 

I think I found my problem then....

I remember when I installed the antenna/stud on the mount I had to kind of jam it through to get it to fit. Didn't have a drill at the time.

 

There's a bunch of stuff you should check to make sure your antenna lead is isolated and the shield is shielding. I'll write those up in a bit and PM you but Firestik's website is a good resource.

I'm going to guess that the CB is fried. Might want to disconnect the power to it, reapply and see if it powers back up in working condition. Never delved into the guts of a CB to know if it might be fused or fixable.

 

CB still works gets signal and can hear others as long as they're within 10-15 feet. CB's are much harder to fry nowadays from what everybody has said.