Would you drive a 100 series across the country...

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Hey guys, thanks for all the help. I realize now that I basically just overreacted from stress in my last 3 posts. Bear with me...been a LONG 48 hours finalizing this deal/flying/missed connections/etc. stress just got to me 100 miles into my trip when something didn't go right.

Either I fixed the HC or it fixed itself. I messed around with it after a food break and got it back into normal operation. I must have been doing something wrong.

As far as the power steering goes, maybe that's just me being a Sally and forgetting that this thing is always in 4hi, so logically turning in parking lots should be more effort than my 3rd gen in ised to driving.

And my MPGs? Wasn't concerned. Gotta pay to play the way I see it. BUT, I've averaged 15.4mpg over 309 miles thus far according to the scan gauge. We will see how that holds up when I finish the trip!

Thanks for everybody's support.
 
Damn. Spoke too soon. Had to pull out the front of the drive thru to wait for my fresh coffee, turned truck off and waited.

Turned it back on, height control blinking off again.

I did notice earlier that the HC resivoir by the firewall was WAY over the high mark.

Until next time..
 
You'll make it home, don't worry. Congrats on the new truck, great find.
 
Made it home late last night after 21 straight hours on the road. 1445 miles to bring it home. AHC flashed off/or was normal 50% of the time.....no ryhme or reason. makes me think it's a sensor, but seeing as I was on the road, I didn't have the opportunity to do a clear search on here to know more.

I will take some pics later today when I really wake up!
 
NC-Grayson said:
Made it home late last night after 21 straight hours on the road. 1445 miles to bring it home. AHC flashed off/or was normal 50% of the time.....no ryhme or reason. makes me think it's a sensor, but seeing as I was on the road, I didn't have the opportunity to do a clear search on here to know more.

I will take some pics later today when I really wake up!
Click to expand...


Cool.

Sometimes getting THAT many hours alone with a new vehicle allows you the time to learn all of it's little idiosyncrasies and make a mental list of the things you want to work on (once you wake up of course!).

Looking forward to some pics!


-G
 
I wish I had some pics for you guys but it's basically been raining since I got home.

Now that I've had some time to do some searching on the AHC, I realize it could be a number of any things. My best bet is a dealer scan correct? The nearest Lexus dealer is 200 miles away.....will the local Toyota dealership be able to scan this?

Also, I can't tell if I am having power steering issues, or the AHC is messing with me. Turning in parking lots takes a lot of effort and I can hear what I would assume to be the PS pump when I'm struggling to turn the wheel. Am I just not used to driving and turning in 4hi all the time? Or could AHC be messing with the power steering ability?

Thanks folks
 
AHC should not have that much impact on steering input effort. The 100 has pretty good power steering so you shouldn't feel like you are putting in extra effort to turn at low speed. Honestly what you describe as far as steering issues sounds like the CDL is engaged.

What is the stance of the truck; ie is it sitting at a normal ride height with the malfunctioning indicators or is it sitting low as well?
 
Truck sits at normal or N when the "off" button is flashing. It sits at normal or N when it's not flashing.

as far as the CDL goes, unless there is a dash light out, I don't think it's engaged. Honestly, k haven't even touched the CDL button, so unless it's been locked and the lights been out this whole time I'm not sure...

It's like sitting still in a parking lot, it's realllllllly hard to turn the wheel. But if you roll forward super slowly, it starts turning more easily. Still sound like CDL? I've never owned anything with any locking differentials...
 
Put both the tranny and transfer case into neutral.... Press the CDL button... Put the transfer case into high "h" and throw it in Drive... Does the light go on? Does it act any differently?
 
So I did as GKCArmory suggested: The light did NOT come on on the dash. I could hear it clicking in the passenger floor area, but no light on the dash.

I can't remember now if the CDL button was in the "in" or "out" position on my way home, but now with it in the "out" position, my steering feels better from a stop. My guess is that I drove the whole way home with the center diff locked. I hope I didn't damage anything.

Need to get that light fixed....My assumption is that when the button is pushed in, CDL is engaged, when it's left out, it's open.
 
Like most others have said, you'll be fine. I have a buddy that put 230k on his original Tbelt before changing it. Obviously, that's not ideal, but the recommended service interval allows for quite a bit of slack. Toyota's will recommend people change the belt LONG before that think it will actually fail.
 
Here's what everybody's been waiting for:

The moment I got her:



And then this happened a few hours later:


Got a few hours shut-eye in the back in some town right outside of TX in LA that night:


Woke up at 3AM the next morning and hit the road to The Big Easy to say I did:


And stopped on Bourbon Street for a quick photo:


And I didn't really stop anywhere scenic or take any other pics on the way home, I just enjoyed the drive. Made it home to my house in NC at 12:30am, after 21 straight hours on the road. Slept like a baby.

Washed it yesterday:


And tried to get some pics on my sweet iphone to give y'all an idea as to how ridiculously clean this thing is. I feel bad because I can clearly tell this thing has been garage kept it's entire life in West Texas, and I don't have a garage for it now :/ The leather of the seats is IMMACULATE, as is the wood grain trim. I've seen some others that don't look so good.







(last picture the bumper looks like it's sitting crooked, but I can assure you it's just the angle of the lighting!)

for 17-18ish years old......this thing i a BEAUTY :) and I am very happy with the purchase. I just need to figure out a few things here and there, but overall I'm happy to finally be a part of this community
 
Last edited:
For those that have been following, I just got out and finally monkey'ed around with the AHC now that I'm home, not stressed about a blnking light, and have had time to actually read the manual. Here are my findings.

The first two starts of the morning today, no problems with the AHC. (I've only started it twice so that's a good sign!! lol)

Sitting parked in my driveway, I got it to cycle through all the settings, Low, Normal, and High. It was pretty cool pressing the button and feeling the car move....I'm sure some of you think that's lame but I like this feature.

I took some measurements, Driver's side FRONT Ground to Fender, not Hub to fender.

HIGH - 35 1/4"
NORMAL 33 1/2"
LOW 32"

Any thoughts on these numbers....are these about normal? from the quck readings of the owners manual, the changes in heights between levels seem consistent with the literature.

ALSO, I found what I might think to be the answer to all of my problems on the journey home. Take a look at the last bullet on this page of the owners manual, in the AHC section:


THIS leads me to believe that YES, my center differential was LOCKED the entire drive home, albeit without any lights on the dash to indicate so. IF I am to read the owners manual correctly, the AHC will not make ANY adjusments when the CDL is in fact locked. So I can assume that my CDL was locked the whole trip, which caused my AHC to not work, (as it's supposed to).

Can anyone confirm my assumptions? Thank you all for such a great site!
 
I can only assume your correct... Somewhere it says that you can drive up to a certain speed with the CDL in the locked position but only on dirt or wet roads... Where tractions is needed. I have personally drove mine locked in on a dirt road at 45mph. The Suspension soaks up the bumps like your riding on a cloud.
 
I would try to get it on a lift and lock/unlock the CDL to see the behavior between the front and rear axle. Then you could confirm whether it is engaging or not and if it is then you would know the bulb is the issue.

It is an easy button to bump with a knee or if the car got detailed (likely) it could've been bumped then as well.

Clean looking truck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom