greaseball

i have an 86 without cruise it sure would be nice to have cruise because i live 40 miles from town is it possible to get the parts from the wrecking yard and put cruise in my truck and what parts do i need and is the harness there?

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

Hopefully the harness is all there or else you'll have to get that and I'm willing to bet that it's all wound up with the main harness. Also, you'll have to get the dash switch, computer and vacuum conrol with cable.....

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

Your main harness needs to support the cruise control. It sounds as if yours did not come with cruise control so your harness wont have that installed in it. I am sure there is a way to wire it in but that is over my head on how to go about that.

You will need to find harness that had cruise contorl on it. Swapping harnesses is a big job https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...4-88-a-278925/ and the factory cruise control is finicky from what I understand. You will have the truck stripped quite a ways down to swap harnesses.

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

Not to mention the linkage for the throttle body.

Your best bet like anything else is to buy a vehicle with a working cruise control (The first part that gets removed) Other wise you will spend days hunting for parts you need but forgot the first 10 trips.

Gevo

Well, I don't think you'd have to strip your car down to change the harness, I think you can just add the harness parts that pertain to the cruise control. With that said, I believe (I dont have 86 service manual to confirm) that the ECU also has some connections for the cruise control computer. So, It's looking like a LOT of researching one way or another.

The mechanical parts shouldn't be to hard to come by. I have the whole cruise system on my parts truck still, so if you find one similar and remove all of the parts in one shot it won't be a big deal.

Gevo

OH. and to add.. I have cruise contro, I love cruise control but I can not use it on my 4runner... the lack of power of the engine and the relatively dumb cruise control mapping don't work well together, so I end up with stupid upshifts for no good reason.

RJR

Honestly, it's probably easier to install an after-market cruise control designed to fit various vehicles. It won't be as "smart" as a factory version, but I've installed after-market cruise in several vehicles and it's fairly straight forward. You basically need to do the following.
- Find place in the engine compartment for the actuator. Passenger side fender is good.
- Connect the actuator cable to the throttle with a sliding linkage. (should be supplied in the kit.)
- Mount the controls in the cabin, usually on a small panel at the bottom of the dash.
- Wire the brake sense line to the brake-light circuit. If a manual, also wire to the clutch sense switch.
- Wire the rpm sense line to the ignition rpm output.
- Take it for a test drive on a non-busy road, and adjust gain control for stability for your particular vehicle.
- Enjoy it.

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

RJR.. Do you recommend one brand of cruise control for these trucks? I eventually want to add an aftermarket to my trucks and don't want to mess with the factory one. I did some research a while back and just got a headache over it.

RJR

I haven't done this for quite a while, so I don't know what's out there these days. I got mine from JC Whitney. A google search turned up some other possibilities as well. I'd suggest spending some time on the internet and figuring out what possibilities you have.

scope103

Your aftermarket cruise might want to know rpm, but it actually needs to know speed. I haven't installed an aftermarket cruise since 1975 (sheesh! time flies), but it came with a set of magnets that you attached to the driveshaft with stainless wire. It worked really well, so I'm going to guess that a "modern" aftermarket cruise will work the same way.

Gevo

All this cruise control talk is making me want to remove mine!!

RJR

Wasn't someone on this forum just a few weeks ago talking about a GPS gadget that would output 4000 pulses/mile? That's in the same ballpark as rpm at 60 mph, which at 3000 rpm would be 3000 pulses/mile. Something like that could work, I suppose.

On my old Ford pickup, sensing rpm worked fine, because that big V8 never had to downshift for hills. Probably wouldn't work as well with a 4runner.

AdmiralYoda

I'd like to get mine working! I got my 87 15 years ago and it didn't work then. Would be nice to get it working now. I have a 30 mile trip to work, mostly highway and 5th gear @ 65mph is no problem the whole way.

What is the common failure point on the cruise control? Mine doesn't work one bit. But the little green light turns on when I press the button on the dash!

scope103

While a cruise control can fail anywhere, I would concentrate on verifying the vacuum part.

I'm pretty sure the '87 does not have so sophisticated (complicated) a controller as shown in this '93 manual http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-b...10cruiseco.pdf , I'll bet the trouble shooting guide will still lead you right to the problem.