farmerj

So lately the 4Runner has been getting more and more longer trips as the reliability has improved. The first true test of its road worthiness was a trip to Ontario Canada fishing pulling a 16 ft fishing boat with a weeks worth of food, camping and fishing gear for 3 people. At 18 MPG and no break downs, it was a treat to have no problems.

The drive was the hardest part. Canada is 100 KM/H on the TransCan highway and I have not had to, nor do I care to deal with the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in a civilian fashion. I dealt with them on borer security duty and that was all I cared to do with them.

That trip and several since have finally prompted us to install a cruise control into the Runner. The wife didn't like taking the 4Runner on trips for that reason.

Problem solved. In went an Audiovox Cruise Control. It is an aftermarket, vacuum operated cruise control. It is able to be installed in both manual and automatic transmission vehicles. As well as vehicles with or without vehicle speed sensors (VSS) or in a front wheel or rear wheel drive.

One intersting point that I have learned during this install. It would apply to those with the manual more than anything. Since the manual transmission does not have a VSS hook up to sense speed, it reads off the tach signal only, you can use it in ANY gear, at ANY speed. That would include 1 Lo. How many others can say they have cruise on the trail.....

ALL pictures are hyper linked to the full size JPG. There's a lot here, so it should save some bandwidth doing it this way.

The cruise control...


The first thing the instructions tell you to do is to install the VSS. I used a 3/8 drill and an air ratchet to install the self-tapping screws that came with it. When they talk about an airgap being needed, it is very true. I thought I had it set right at first, but had to moove the bracket one hole out to get it right.

One thing needs to be pointed out here. On an older manual transmission vehicle, we have an 88 4runner, the VSS magnets are not required. I could have skipped this step and will be removing it in the future. The magnetic speed sensor that came with the cruise uses double face tape to hold the magnet in place until you can tighten the stainless steel wire up. I opted to use a 5 minute 2 part epoxy. Partly why I havent taken it off yet. It will be a chore.

Once the VSS was installed, the control servo needed to be located into the engine compartment. Fist thought was to install it on the firewall, but the instructions say not to as the control relays will make a racket that will be hear in the passenge compartment. The control cable need to be kept relatively straight without any tight bend or kinks here. With the 22REC, the throttle ody is on the right, and the cable is long enough to put the control servo under the mastercylinder by the ignition coil. It was originally turn 180 degrees, but that got the cable too close to the exhaust. Not a good location.


Once the servo was set into a location, it was time to hook up the throttle linkage to the throttle. I have since cut 2 additional balls out of the chain in the 4th picture.

In the first picture, just to the right of the "E" on the intake manifold is the vacuum advance line for the distributor. It is here I "T" in the vacuum line for the cruise control. I recommend pulling the fitting at that time and taking a drill bit to make sure it is completely open. Mine was about 80% blocked by carbon and I had a heck of a time figuring out why the cruise would just cut out on it's own under load. Not enough vacuum (6" minimum) and the cruise will shut off.

Once the linkage was hooked up it was time to use the air ratchet again and a self tapping screws to install the control servo to the inner fender well.


It was also at this time that the final setting were made on the DIP switches and the other wires started to get hooked up. The blue wire is the tach signal. It could have reached over to the tach termianl on the test terminal, I just choose to hook it straight to the coil.

The DIP switched tell the cruise what the basic info controlling it is. For our truck we were supposed to have a tach signal only and to set it for 4000 pulses per minute.

The 4000 PPM I think is cut in half and as a result, in 4th geear, the truck would only do 55 MPH and in 5th gear, 65 MPH. Not looking good for AUdiovox here folks. It was getting ready to get yanked out and returned if I couldn't figure out how to get it to set at 75 MPH. Out came the diagnostic TACH and take a trip down the interstate. 4th gear 55 MPH, 2000 RPM. 5th Gear, 65 MPH, 2000 RPM. Seeing the pattern, I changed the DIP switches to 6000 PPM. I can now set it to 75 MPH. I am thinking if I take it to 3000 RPM it would limit out.

To get the wires into the passenger compartment, since I had to replace the heater control cable at the same time anyway, I ran them through an oversize grommet with the control cable.


This is what the final engine compartment ended up looking like.


The wire harness ended up being run up and around the brake booster eventually as the exhaust was melting the wire loom I installed the wiring into.

farmerj

Once the engine compartment was done, it was into the drivers seat...

First installed was the control panel.


I choose here, because once I am done shifting it is natural for my shifting hand to reach up to the cruise controls. Turned out to be a nice location too. The panel also has a back light that I installed to a panel switch power source. Lights on, the control panel lights up. I am looking for a source to hook it into that will allow it to dim with the panel as well now.

It was then time to hook up the 4 pin connector and the brakeswitch.

Make sure you put your wires in from the correct side, or you will wish you had the wire terminal tool to take apart your connector. I got lucky and had one in the tool box already. Yes I did mess that up.

Everything from the control Servo in the engine compartment, got routed into the passenger compartment through the firewall. 4 of the wires got installed into the above connector which is connected to the control panel.

In the third picture you can see the wire loom I used to bundle up the wires under the dash as well. This stuff is a must have as far as I am concerned. Maskes a short job out of cleaning up an install like this.


To hook up the signal wires to tell the cruise to shut off, 2 wires are connected to the brake switch. Not much room in the harness to make things fit, but it got done.


All in all the cruise works good. I think the instructions were a little misgiving in what they wanted to try and have you do and some stuff was done (VSS) that should have been explained better up front.

One of the nice things about this with a manual transmission is the ability to use it at speeds well below 30 MPH.

The DIP switches have settings that allow you to adjust the servos for sensitivity based on engine power. Most engines will use the middle setting. With oversize 31X10.50 tires, the low power engine setting seems to function alittle better with this cruise on the 22REC.

4Crawler

iTrader: (3)

I put one of those units in my VW. It works very well, definately better than the factory Toyota cruise control:

http://www.4crawler.com/Diesel/Cheap...eControl.shtml

trythis

I put one in my 22re engine, but had to put in a vacuum pump, because it just wouldn't work on hills without it.

farmerj

I was having the same problem with mine at first.

After doing some minor tune-up and finally getting decent power again, with decent mileage, I was able to get it to hold at 70mph.

One of the biggest improvements I did was to tighten up the bleeder vlave or whatever it is next to the throttle plate. I can get a pitcure if absolutely necessary.

It's just under a 1/2" in size

4Crawler

iTrader: (3)

My stock cruise works decent on the hills and it is vacuum operated. I recently added a small vacuum reservoir by the servo and it lets the servo keep pulling on the throttle down to around 2"-3" Hg vacuum, w/o the reservior it stopped around 4" Hg vacuum. There is a check valve in the reservoir that only lets the engine pull a vacuum on the reservoir.