Cebby

I thought about adding a hand throttle down the line after the winch goes in, but thought that since the cruise does a similar job with the throttle.....well lets just say the wheels started turning...

Is it possible to fool the cruise into thinking it is in gear when it's in neutral. (Auto in 2G Runner). Obviously I would want to keep the safety features in tact (tapping brake disengages, etc)

I would think if you could figure out what tells the cruise to activate and interrupt that wire or figure a way to "jump it", there might be some promise for it. Also would need to ID the way it adjusts the throttle to maintain speed...

Any thoughts on this, or should I put the crack pipe down?

yamarocket630

Most cruise controls deactivate below a certain speed, ususally 30-35... you probably won't be winching that fast.

mike_d

i'm sure it's possible. anything's possible given enough time and money. however, i would argue that it's a bad idea, and here's why. cruise control is a feed back circuit based on speed. if you fool the cruise to be on while in neutral, it'll get feed back of 0mph, so i'll increase the throttle, still see 0mph, and keep increasing the throttle. as you can imagine, bad things will happen. if you notice in the manual, it says that when using cruise with a manual that you have to press the clutch before going into neutral, or risk over revving the engine. the clutch press (or brake) is the only way to cancel the cruise in a manual.

i think it would be a much better idea just to use a hand throttle. pick up an old style mountain bike thumb shifter and you're set. it should be no more than $10 at a bikeshop. this has been on my todo list for quite sometime, mainly because my brother works at a bikeshop and i get lots of free parts.

mike

Phisherman

VERY easy mod to do! I had one on my previous vehicle which will remain unnamed.

This vehicle had a clip for one more wire at the throttle. Just secure the wire to the throttle and run it through a grommet. You can prob. pick up a hand throttle assembly from a FJ-62 and custom mount it to the dash.

Get all the slack out of it and make sure it stays unrestricted at ALL times. We don't want to hear a run-a-way 4Runner story!


I can't believe I just came up with that! OK, I patent this write-up(unless it's been done before, in which case I concede)!!!

Jim

Cebby

I don't think I explained my idea well enough. I want to use the factory buttons on the steering wheel. Get into the cruise module itself and tweak it to bypass the speed control and the whole being in "drive" thing.

Flamedx4

Cebby, you can't get a cruise control to do that. The cruise doesn't know it's in gear, it only knows that it can read a range of pulses and when the pulses fall outside that range it won't try to operate the cruise (that's why they quit a low speed.)

On big diesels that are now ECM controlled the fast idle feature is just an input, and the programmig logic says when that switch is on increase idle to <whatever you set> Can't really do that either with a Toyota ECM I imagine...

I had a hand throttle (old fashioned $5 choke cable, with a piece of stainless braided wire on the throttle end, so when it was off it was relaxed and didn't interfere with normal operation) on my '85 and it was nice. On the 89-95 there is a 'button' on the lower dash below where the dash dimmer knob is - I was thinking that's a natural spot for a hand throttle....

Another idea would be to get an air-conditioning fast-idle solenoid (or somthing similar) and install it at the throttle stop, when switched on it just bumps up the stop. But I liked the cable because I could bump it up a little or a lot, depending on why I was using it.

mike_d

i've been thinking of a solution for you. one thing i thought of was that if you could find the pinouts for the ecu and figure out what signals come in from the buttons on the steering wheel and what goes out to the cruise module. if you could just bypass the ecu, you could use the buttons to control a cheap little stepper motor. you could then use the stepper motor to pull on the throttle and then the buttons could be used to pick a set rpm.

Cebby

There are some good ideas here! Mike D, this is what I was thinking, except I want to use the stepper that resides in the cruisecontrol already. The pinouts is where I need to go. I have a FSM, so I need to see if there is some usable info in there.

Flamedx4

So you're driving down the highway towing that 20 foot trailer with your crawlin' rig on it, and accidently drop your cigarette in your lap. You fiddle for it and can't find it right off and it burns your "lap" and THAT makes you spill your freshly opened beer and when the cold one soaks your lap the fire goes out but the cold makes you grit your teeth and grip the steering wheel and bang on the dash with your free hand, activating the buttons for the fast idle cruise control override....

The insurance investigator's report says that while the vehicle's brakes were severely burned, the absence of a downgrade makes this an unlikely cause for the accident. In fact, the vehicle's throttle appeared to be stuck wide open, and destructive testing results at the lab indicate it was not the throttle but the cruise control, caused by the presence of additional wiring and switches apparently installed by someone other than the vehicle manufacturer...

Claim denied.

Cebby

My what an active imagination you've got! I was thinking of some sort of safety circuit or two to make it infallible. The one that comes to mind are from one of those bank heist movies where two guys have keys that they have to turn at the same time. "on my mark....3...2...1..." I figured I'd put one key lock in the cargo area and one by the oil filter.

Actually, in addition to having a hidden switch to activate it, I planned to have a reverse of the circuit that kicks it off below 30 Mph as an additional failsafe. Basically have it sense any activity from the VSS and make it shutoff if it does.

I used my cruise last week to see if it still worked, but prior to that, I don't think it has even been used for about 6 years...

If this isn't fairly easy to accomplish, I'll scrap the idea and just install a regular hand throttle from Slee...