3 Tons of Fun! Littles' Build, Travel, and B.S. Thread

Never seen this done for a manual, but I’m stoked to see how it turns out and if it helps things for you.

 

I am pretty anxious to see how this impacts things for me as well. I have no doubt it will fix the temps, just interested to see how much and under what conditions.

I would consider this a huge success if my temps stay below 220 post install, but under 200 would make me even happier.

Just for pre-install reference temps, my unscientifically collected data is that I typically hit 180-200 after 30-45 minutes and will run at around 220-230 after 60-90 minutes over the passes getting out of the front range. I usually get some downhills and cool a bit either to 220 or slightly lower, but so far never below 200 once the trans is warm, even with a short gas stop. I usually seem to hit the 230 plus after that through the next series of hills.

I dont actually know what these indicators on these gauges mean, but my guess is I am just below 240 on this one after driving nonstop back from Beuna Vista a few weeks ago.

 

Man this wild fire smoke really sucks. Red Cone was pretty underwhelming this year compared to every other time I've been up.

8/20/17


8/12/18


7/3/20



8/8/21

 

Good running into you out there, I didn't even bother taking any pics other than of goats 5 feet away due to the smoke. It was actually a pretty big buzz kill for one of my favorite places in the state.

 

Likewise. Good to see you up there too. That is the ONLY pic I took this weekend for comparative purposes. My girlfriend said I over hyped the views until I showed her these older pics. Such a beautiful area normally.

 

Frame rust update:

I snapped this back in June 2020. Passenger side frame rail just behind my OPEN cab mounts. At the time I ground it down smooth and painted it, with some fear in the back of my head that this may be coming from the inside of the frame. Well...



August 2021:

The same spot is rusting out. Looks worse this year with flakes of steel coming off and having to grind a larger area to expose "good" steel and identify the extent of the rot. I can see all the shit inside the frame through the cab mounts because I didnt plate them. Dumbass. Suddenly no fucks givin' is a lot of fucks givin'





I am concerned, but not overly worried after seeing some other pics of truly rusted frames. I think the expansion of the rust can can be limited by doing a relocate and closing that giant round hole in the frame rail behind the mount, and the frame can be reinforced. It is what it is. Theres no free no frame coming from Toyota at this point. Based on my research it does not appear you can just replace rotted sections of the 2nd gens frames like the first gens could.

Any additional suggestions on dealing with the frame rot would be appreciated. I will dial back my rhetoric on not plating your cab mounts. It's a good idea.

 

Appreciate the suggestion. I was thinking a similar thing...cut out as much rot as possible, fill in with a plate and then do some sort of additional bracing on the inside of the frame. I have seen weld on bracing for the 1st gens but not the 2nd. I'd be happy to have you do this for me in addition to the rear setup we talked about, but dont want to pile on too much in one visit. At this point I am not going to bother with plating the cab mounts, but I am going to relocate them and close up the holes in the frame and clean up the rust I can.

 

Getting closer on the trans cooler...I failed to order another enough straight push lock fittings but I have all my 90s fingered out and starting to route hoses. I should have this installed by the weekend.

Here is what the trans drain "plug" will look like with the thermostat and temp gauge sensor.

 

@6 gearT444E

Scratching my head on this one and hoping maybe you can offer an explanation with your knowledge of electricity. I went to prime the oil pump and test the fan on my new trans cooler last night and and the relay I had wired up would just buzz under load with either one connected. It seemed like the fan was trying to start up, would turn a little, but wouldnt go. I also noticed that the led on my switch would dim as if it wasnt getting proper voltage. If i disconnect both, the relay seems to operate normally.

Both batteries are charged reading 13v and no reason they shouldnt have been able to run both motors and hold the relay contacts open. I went over everything, checked connections and voltages at each point without the load and swapped out relays and harnesses with the same result. I did notice that voltage seemed to drop cross the switch contacts when I flipped the switch to close the relay.

Then this morning I completely bypassed the relay to the fan and for a few seconds nothing happened. Then it slowly started to turn and the motor eventually whirred up to full speed after about 10 seconds.

I reconnected the relay into the mix and bam...everything works perfectly. Tested briefly with the pump and it works to.

So I am wondering what the actual f? Why would the relay behave that way and then after direct connection the fan to the battery, all of sudden start working? I changed nothing in the wiring between last night and tonight. It's almost like direct connecting the fan to the battery cleared out some electrical blockage in the circuit, but I'm not sure that's a thing.

It seems to be working now, I am just puzzled as to what happened and want to make sure i have it all working consistently before i button this all back up.

 

Maybe the bearings in the fan were a little sticky and just needed to wear in a bit. Pretty strange, regardless, though.

 

I entertained that as an explanation as well but it did the same thing with just the pump connected. Both the fan and pump would spin freely by hand.

 

what side of the load is the switch on of the relay coil, I suspect you didn't have enough voltage drop across the coil to pick it up, hence the buzzing you heard.

 

Honestly, I dont really know what you're asking me when you ask what side of the load the switch is on.. I dont really know any other way I could wire this than the way I did...

But I can try to describe it to you and draw you pretty picture fit for a kindergarten classroom...i am no electrical engineer so please forgive me!



My positive splits off from the battery down to power a) the thermostat/switch and then b) the relay via the #30 pin and blue wire on the relay (shown as red in my drawring). The thermostat/switch sends the signal back to close the relay (turn on) on pin #86 via the white wire on the relay (shown using orange in my drawring because white wont show up). Yellow off #87 is the load to the pump and fan.

 

Got everything buttoned up today on the trans cooler and took a test drive today.

Results inconclusive

After 60 miles of driving, I never got the trans up to temp to trigger the thermostat or pump.

I did however see a temperature inversion between trans and the crawl box, which I'm using as a baseline here. The source of heat for the crawlbox when its 1:1 is primarily the trans, so that should be a relative constant. With the drain plug sensors, my trans has always run 15-20 degrees hotter than the crawl box.

Readings today with the new location of the trans sensor after 60 miles:

Trans at 115ish, crawlbox 150ish. What?!



Readings yesterday (pre-install) after 40 miles:

Trans 210ish, crawlbox 120ish


That's a huge difference that has nothing to do with the new cooler. No way it ever kicked on. I stopped to check along the way and it wasnt running when I stopped with the trans at the highest temp. I would guess that I hit 200 degrees in the trans but the sensors read much lower just from moving the sensor from the drain plug where it was touching hot tranny oil down to the fitting on the outside of the trans 2-3" away where there is a lot more air cooling that fitting. I expected some convergence of readings, but the ambient cooling of the fittings and sensors is way more I expected. The trans actually started higher than the crawlbox, then held at the point pictured as I watched the crawlbox increase in temp past the trans.

My skid plates are also removed so there is more airflow than usual. I will have to factor all this in somehow as I try assess the results.

 

delving into the unknown.

 

It's a fun little project. I am thinking through my options. Could do a lower temp thermostat or just put it on a switch and flip it on when the crawl box gets to 150ish, but my real frustration is not having a consistent basis for temp measurements other than crawl box as a reference. I was really hoping to be more scientific than this.

 

Get a timer relay with an override switch.

 

What about maybe making a sort of airflow shield over the sensors so that they aren't being cooled as much from that?

 

I actually did make a little tshirt and jorts for the the sensors and elbow, but for the complete opposite reason...to insulate from the heat of the exhaust.


For now I swapped the power over to a switch in my cab verusus a constant 12v, and bypassed the thermostat with a jumper.

My thought is I can manually force the hotter oil in the trans to flow past the sensors and the reading on my gauge should jump from the 110 degree range to to at least 160 or so before it starts cooling. The thermostat won't be in play for the test, but if that works, I will switch up the wiring so that the thermostat is powered off pin 87a on my relay connected to the in cab switch. 87a is hot when the relay is open/off, so that way I can activate the fan and pump manually through the switch once the trans is warm, and then flip off the switch to let the thermostat take over. Similar to Josh's idea with a timer to get the juices flowing.