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

Moving to AZ in a few months, easy fix

 

Believe it or not, it does rain here...monsoon season is fun.

 

I might have a spare. They sent me one for a 16.5 gallon tank instead of the 18 gal tank and it's just chilling on the parts shelf

 

How about some DT Headers, I just took them off for the turbo. They have a leak on the drivers side ball flange but I might have figured out a fairly easy solution for it

 

Installed the 4runner air duct and vent

 

The JBA headers are already Inboud otherwise I would have taken You up on that lol

Sadly I’ve got the larger tank

and I believe my tanks different due to the year

 

My wife hated that in my 4runners, you know, chapped lips.

 

Damn lol

 

vs

 

What're you all getting for charging voltage on a 3RZ? I have a secondary battery installed with an ML-ACR system and I noticed it would keep shutting off because the charging voltage dips below 12.9v (lowest I've seen is 12.3v)- the highest I ever see the alternator charge (with the secondary battery isolated) is 13.2v

Not sure if this is a sign of a failing alternator, or maybe it's just not strong enough to be charging two batteries at once.

 

you should be at 14.1-14.4v with the truck running. I'd say the regulator on the alt is going out or the brushes.

 

Gotcha. I'm reading this battery voltage off my Alpine radio head so I'll have to confirm with my multimeter on the alternator itself - but it didn't seem right when I was monitoring it. The ACR kept switching off so it's most likely a low voltage issue.

It's the original 1998 Alt with 148k miles on it, so might be time to do the Suzuki alt I think everyone upgrades these with.

 

I think mine was around 13 before I installed the voltage boosting fuse thing. I charge at between 14.2 and 14.8 now. Still OEM alt. Single red top optima battery that's like 8 years old

 

I have a Northstar AGM that's like 4 years old and sometimes the truck will have trouble starting in the morning, I'm trying to figure out if it's an alternator charging issue or a parasitic draw.

 

considering you have an AGM, I would recommend one of those fuses to up the charge voltage. those batteries need more juice otherwise I've found they slowly lose charge over time.

You can also achieve the same thing by just swapping the fuse with a diode into that circuit, but some argue that you're losing safety with that

 

Do you have 2 Northstar AGMs?

That is what I have. They are almost 8 years old now. I've found they benefit from a desulfation cycle now and then or something similar to what you are describing happens. I use one of these:

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

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006G14FK8?ie=UTF8&th=1

I have found the batteries will accept a charge much much better after running the desulfating cycle.

 

14.4v is typically the max I see. If you have an obd reader you should be able to check voltage from that also. Meter is best for sure. Haven't heard of the zuk alternator. Cs144 from a jaguar is what I've heard. I should probably upgrade to that also now that I'm powering an accessory waterpump.

 

My CS144 charges at 14.1-14.3 most of the time, or 13.9 when loaded down with lights and fridge. Highly recommend it for the AGM setup, especially dual AGM's. Upgraded harness helps too. (IE Big 3 which is more like the Big 5)

 

unfortunately can't use the CS alt for the 3rz.

 

X2, great little chargers. Only thing I wish it did better was it'll sometimes fault out in a battery but it doesn't tell you why. A fault code would be handy.