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

I finally got around to chopping that stinger off my all pro bumper.

 

Finally got my antenna tuned. Only took relocating the antenna twice and destroying 1 antenna stud but my SWR is 1.0 on channel 1 and 40.

 

Is that the LCE header I see? Did you put it on or buy the truck like that?

 

What antenna and where did you mount?

 

Firestik 3 foot. Should have a 4 foot but I wouldn't fit in my garage with it. I originally had a Firestik antenna stud but I didn't bother to read the directions until after I destroyed it. I ended up buying a radio shack mount, drilled the correct size hole and it tuned easy. I did have a Firestik antenna spring but couldn't get my SWR down so I took the spring off and that was the trick.

 

On a 3 ft Firestik, 1.0 SWR on Ch 1 & 40 is highly indicative of an incorrect setup.

It is just too perfect to a match to be realistic. The shorter the antenna, the narrower the bandwidth of the antenna. A likely explanation is the configuration of the washers and the size of the hole on your mount. It has to be a specific size so that the center stud of the antenna does not make a complete circuit with the chassis ground. You should notice that the nylon washer supplied with the Firestik mount has a lip on it. This lip is supposed to fit the hole of the mount and center the stud so that it does not make contact with the mount.

The reason I am so suspicious of your numbers is because I have seen this exact scenario on another truck. The center stud was contacting the mount because the nylon washer was on the bottom, giving a flat 1.0 SWR across the band. Its really easy to underestimate the intricacies of radio antennas and their proper setup.

What I would expect to see is a usuable SWR across 20 channels or so on that short of antennas. What you could do is tune it for the range of channels you intend to use.

See these articles:

http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/mkfr-instl_nohook.htm

http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/swr-curves.htm

http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/swr-intro.htm

http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs.htm

 

Thats what happened with the first mount. The hole was too small and I crushed the nylon washers and grounded out the antenna. With the second mount, I made sure to drill a 1/2" hole and lined up everything so as to not ground out. With the spring, I had 1.5 on ch.1 and 3.5 on ch.40. After removing the spring (and tuning), I got everything down to a 1.0.

I ran a full diagnostic prior to removing the spring and failed the antenna test. After removing the spring, the voltage, antenna and rx signal test passed.

 

Installed my Maglite Charger




Once i install my Aux fuse box i will wire it in.

 

Got it dirty.

 

Sweet lookin rig! You have a build page for it?

 

I solved my no/mislocated clock problem for $129 + tax



Went washer and dryer shopping at Best Buy with the spousal unit. I wandered over to car audio and found this on sale for $129 and the harness was $5.

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=6261746&pid=1218725174656&pcatId=abcat0302012

Bluetooth, Pandora, Phone controls and most all a clock!

 

Finally got my OBA installed and running!

 

Its in the works I'm just lazy.

 

I got my wheels off of sumit racing. I got spacers up front too clear the calipers. I dont think its the rims

Ill give this a try..thank you

Tried this and no luck. Hopefully its an easy fix

 

Oh, I took her camping this weekend

 

Replaced driver side inner tie rod with moog. The issue I'm searching for is till there but it needed to be done anyway since there was lots of play.

The one I removed (stock) was weak and could easily be moved around, but it lasted 180k miles so I got good use out of it.

Now the driver side is all new with 2 month old LBJ, 2 month old outer tie rod, and brand new inner tie rod.

Next I gotta give the passenger side some love.

 

Have the same radio! It is really bright at night with the two long light strips on the side.

 

Anyone know a sure way to check wheel bearings?

I've raised the front end and spun the wheels and both sides sound normal. I've also spun the wheel and place my hand on the coil spring to feel for vibes or grinding but it's nothing out of the ordinary.

My symptoms are a grinding sound that seems to be insync with the rotation of the tire and it becomes noticeable after 40mph. Also, when I get up to 60-70mph I'm getting wobbly and shaky steering along with the grinding sound. It seems to be the driver side tire/ wheel

 

Some more progress from today.




Shock mounts taking shape. This is all 1020 DOM by the way.

 

have you pulled the brakes and felt just the hub to see if there are any spots its harder to turn?