First car, lx450!

[tug123]

3-6 degrees of timing is the money spot 10 degrees is playing with fire.

Agreed, I've just seen many threads where it's running well at >10 degrees you're most likely a tooth off. It's weird to me that 3 degrees runs poorly but 6 runs great. Maybe I'll just open up the distributor at TDC and see what the rotations at.

 

[tug123]

Yeah I don't think I'm a tooth off, this seems pretty spot on haha

 

[tug123]

I am beginning to wonder if this parasitic battery drain is coming from this Draw Tite tow hitch. No idea how to operate the thing, will dig into it seems like it's always on.

 

[tug123]

How safe is it to just cut the wires on my tow hitch and cap em?

 

[banjo1981]

As long as they’re not grounded out before the point you cut them…

 

[mudgudgeon]

How safe is it to just cut the wires on my tow hitch and cap em?

Is there a harness connector under the rear floor for the trailer harness?

 

[tug123]

Is there a harness connector under the rear floor for the trailer harness?

Where would I find that, taking out the seats and pulling up the floor? All I see is the wires going below driver's side but no idea where it goes after that. Four wires, one is ground, one is + (red) that goes into the dash it looks like, two are blue + black that go under the DS to the left of the pedals.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Under the rear cargo area floor. Where spare tire is.

 

[tug123]

Under the rear cargo area floor. Where spare tire is.

Ahhhh I will take a look later today.

 

[ZackR]

I'd use a multimeter to check it out before cutting anything.

 

[tug123]

I'd use a multimeter to check it out before cutting anything.

I did try but got 0A on all (which obviously doesn't make sense), granted it's been awhile since I read amps so it may be more of an involved process. I'll also try my other multimeter as well just to double check.

 

[BILT4ME]

The tow harness is in the right rear fender well. Need to pull the cover and inspect.

The original harness is known to swell up and be a problem.

 

[tug123]

I ran an ammeter while pulling fuses, nothing changed until I pulled the dome fuse, went to 0. Was pulling about 0.5-0.7A, which makes sense with my ~60Ah battery and it dropping 0.2-0.4V every day (think my math is right).

Dome light is unrelated to this tow hitch right, it's interior lighting? Guess I gotta go check where this is coming from. Battery does spark every time I connect to ground, so maybe a short somewhere in the interior light circuit?

 

[tug123]

Just kidding I realized as soon as I posted that the door was open when I was testing it. Drops about 0.03-0.04A when I pull dome light fuse, another 0.03-0.04A when I pull the tow hitch fuse. I guess I got an issue with both? Think the short is coming from tow hitch though, plugging in the fuse causes a bit of a spark.

 

[60 toy ota]

Dome light circuit also keeps the memory for the radio so some draw is expected

 

[tug123]

Got 35 miles on it so far, no smoke. My friend said "it's the best sounding inline six he's heard in years" so that's good haha, I think it's pretty dialed. Idle can still be a bit weird sometimes, and I feel resistance on the gas pedal, will use some graphite lube on the cables and see if that fixes. Will start taking for longer drives this week once I finally put coolant in.

Disconnected the tow hitch fuses overnight, it seems like it only dropped 0.1V instead of 0.2V, but there's definitely still another drain here. Will continue to fight with this one.

 

[Brindleboxer]

You were saying there are wires that go under the dash near the driver, are those also part of the tow hitch you are referring to? Normal tow hitches do not have wiring that goes near the driver's area. Do you know if you have an aftermarket trailer brake kit and that is what the wires are for? If you are not using any of those items I would remove the whole system and place in storage for if or when you would need.

 

[BILT4ME]

Also, do you have the RS3000 alarm system on it?

These are known to be a drain and can be a problem when it decides to shyt the bed. My alarm decided to quit and lock me out in a parking lot pickup up takeout food.

Fortunately I used a key to lock, so I unlocked it, got out my tools, disconnected the battery for 5 minutes to clear the alarm, then went home and ripped it out by the roots.

 

[tug123]

You were saying there are wires that go under the dash near the driver, are those also part of the tow hitch you are referring to? Normal tow hitches do not have wiring that goes near the driver's area. Do you know if you have an aftermarket trailer brake kit and that is what the wires are for? If you are not using any of those items I would remove the whole system and place in storage for if or when you would need.

Brand is Draw Tite - it seems like really shoddy wiring, I followed the whole thing now. Two wires connected to positive battery with fuse, go under DS near pedals. Have the box on left side of DS below wipers, it has four cables - ground (to metal next to box), positive (from battery), signal (goes to rear of car), and one red wire that is spliced into the connector directly into the brake pedal. There's then a box on the back of the car that wires to the tow hitch (along with wire from front of car). Challenge with taking this out is the nut on my positive wire (where fusible link connects) refuses to come undone, so I can't easily pull the wires going from the battery (though I need to fix that regardless so I could replace fusible link). Also the spliced wire into the brake connector is iffy. Rest would be very easy to pull.

Also, do you have the RS3000 alarm system on it?

These are known to be a drain and can be a problem when it decides to shyt the bed. My alarm decided to quit and lock me out in a parking lot pickup up takeout food.

Fortunately I used a key to lock, so I unlocked it, got out my tools, disconnected the battery for 5 minutes to clear the alarm, then went home and ripped it out by the roots.

Haven't checked, but the car alarm screams when I don't unlock it from the fob and use the key instead. I will take a look later today but I wouldn't be surprised by that.

**EDIT**: I do have RS3000 under the driver's seat, might as well pull that out too.

 

[tug123]

After checking for a few nights, if I leave tow hitch and dome fuse unplugged it drains about 0.1V over 12h (instead of 0.2V). So I'm assuming the rest is RS3000. I'm gonna pull the carpets this weekend and get em all cleaned, I'll pull RS3000 then.

Almost done with coolant flushes, on my 5th one and it's almost clear. Is it normal that only about 2.5 gallons comes out when I drain coolant (from both drain plug and lower radiator hose)? Can't really get any more than that.

Gonna focus on baselining suspension system once I get this battery drain figured out.