木 2009 Toyota Sequoia Build Thread 木

[Gallowbraid]

Next up it was time to mount the face plate on the outside of the console. There's a lip that protrudes off the bottom of the face plate where it normally connects to the main body of the radio (where I inserted the screw driver to pry it off before). I wanted to anchor this into the overhead console. I took some measurements, made sure things lined up neatly between the two connectors where the ribbon cable would go and marked it off with a Sharpie.

Then with a semi steady hand and a dremel I opened up a slot on that measured line along with a hole for the magnet on the back of the speaker. The main radio body has a hole in it to accommodate this as well as it sticks out past the back of the face plate.

A couple test fits and some fine tuning and things were headed in the right direction.

Next I tried using some aluminum strips to tie the face plate to the overhead console. The idea was to run the aluminum strip through a small slot cut in the console and then secure it on the backside using either a screw or by creating a twist in the aluminum that would hold it in place. Unfortunately the aluminum was just too thin and doubling it up was proving to be a pain in the butt. I ultimately went with small L-brackets mounted so that they fall on the inside of the radio face plate. A couple screws on the sides with a finish washer and it came out quite nice.

First, what didn't work:

I ended up mounting L-brackets exactly like this after first securing them to the overhead console. Can't get it right on the first try every time. In the end it came out just like I hoped.

Due to the contour of the console there was a small gap between the console and the top of the face plate. You couldn't see it unless you were looking for it, but my OCD would have none of that! I cut some black foam to size and matched the shape of the face plate. I secured this in place behind the face plate effectively filling the gap and settling my OCD conscious.

The only downside to this install is that it isn't complete yet. I've run out of the 12 gauge wire I need to run the power circuit, and the 21 pin ribbon cable that runs from the face plate back to the radio was just a bit short. I've sourced a new ribbon cable and will pick up some wire tomorrow. I hope to have the rest of the install wrapped up by the end of the week. I'll post it then.

 

[Twin Magnolias]

Nice. I need to study up and get my ham license.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Nice. I need to study up and get my ham license.

hamstudy.org

 

[Gallowbraid]

Had some time today to rough in wiring for the radios. So let's discuss circuit design as it pertains to wiring vehicles. I'll share how I lay things out and what I do and you guys can point and laugh while correcting me, ok? Here we go.

The 2M radio has a wiring harness from Kenwood with both a 20A and a 15A fuse on the positive wire and a 15A fuse on the ground wire. We'll discuss the ground wire fuse in a bit, but for now let's focus on the two fuses on the positive wire. Why are there two? I have no idea. Apparently neither does the internet, nor any amateur radio operator I've talked to. There's some debate as to what two fuses in series in a 12V circuit actually does. We could dive down a rabbit hole of impedance added by additional fuses, changes in resistance, blah, blah, blah. At the end of the day though I'm of the opinion that Kenwood put two fuses on the positive wire as a redundancy. One falls close to the radio on one side of the factory connector and the other is on the loose side of the wiring harness, the side that an end user or installer could choose to not use or could throw away. By putting one on the radio side of the connector they're ensuring there will always be a fuse in play.

I've decided that one 15A fuse on the positive side is enough. Kenwood lists the radio as pushing 14A or less when transmitting on high power. This is how I previously had the radio wired in the Tacoma and experienced no issues. I'll run it through the Blue Sea fuse panel and call it good. Now, on to that fuse on the ground wire. Why fuse the ground side of a circuit? Again, there's debate on this but the most common answer is it's there to prevent feedback into the system during engine start if the chassis ground for the battery were to fail. There's some serious amperage running around in the wiring when the starter is calling for pixies. If the chassis ground were to fail those darn little pixies would be looking for the fastest route to ground and might feed back through the radio and start a fire. Fires are bad. Modern vehicles have some other protection in place to keep that amperage from flying around, but another fuse is cheap protection. I'll stick with what Kenwood has in place and put a 15A fuse on the ground connection at the panel.

So now that I've settled fuse sizes, let's move on to wire gauge. This is fairly straightforward:

So a 15A circuit with an estimated run of about 16 feet yields the need for 14 gauge wire. To bring the resistance down a bit I went with 12 gauge instead. Think of the wiring like a highway for those electrical pixies. The smaller number of the gauge the thicker the wire (more strands of copper) so it's more lanes for that pixie traffic to take. Thicker wire is (almost) never a bad thing.

I went ahead and planned for the Cobra 75WXST that I'm going to pick up as well. It pulls a max of 3A, so I used the 5A column on the chart above, sized the wire up one gauge and went with 14 gauge wire for that circuit. Now that we've selected fuse sizes and wire size what's next? Running the wire of course! The trickiest part of running wire in a vehicle install is getting through that pesky engine firewall. There's a few ways to do this including drilling your own hole and installing a rubber grommet to push your wire through. That's all well and good but Toyota was nice enough, as is every other manufacturer, to put a grommet in for their wiring so why not use that? In my case the grommet for the factory wiring is on the lower right side of the firewall and exits into the cab just above the drivers side kick panel.

To prevent water and dirt from entering the cabin the manufacturer generally seals this grommet up nice and tight. It's usually a bad idea to try to fish wiring through the same hole the factory wiring is using as you don't want to damage the tiny factory wires. There's a few ways to create a new opening in this grommet. Some folks will use razor blades or exacto knifes to cut slits in the grommet. This works, but usually creates an opening that's a bit too large and could let moisture or dust in. What I typically do is take a stiff piece of copper wiring and sharpen the tip to poke through the grommet. Then I'll loop the other end a use it to pull the wire through, like this:

Until you get into some thick gauge wires this works pretty well. If I start running 8 gauge or larger wire into the cab I'll typically find a grommet on the underside of the vehicle that I can carefully cut rather than trying to fish through the firewall. Before cabin air filters were a thing it was usually easy to drill a hole in the firewall behind the glove box as well. If you have an older vehicle this can be an option.

Another tip, it's usually better to pull the wire from the engine bay into the cab, this lets you continue pulling wire until you get it where you need it. No guessing how much wire to use or ending up short. Unfortunately the angle in which I had to feed wire through this grommet just didn't allow for that this time and I ended up pulling from the cab into the engine bay.

After pulling through enough wire to comfortably reach the fuse panel and grounding points it was time to wire loom and secure the wire in the engine bay. I like to do wire management as I go so that there's no surprises later where I end up wishing I had lengthened a run of wire. Loom early and loom often, it's always better.
Feed your wires into the loom and then use a bit of electrical tape on the end so that you can push the loom all the way down to the grommet and the wires won't escape. A little electrical tape every 18 inches or so ensures no escapees.

Leave enough lead to comfortably reach the fuse panel and tie everything off here in the engine bay. No need to make these connections now...don't want to be working on live circuits after all.

After moving inside the cab I did some quick estimates on how much wire I would need and then added a couple more feet before making a cut. It was about this much:

I created two twisted pairs just to make things neater and make routing them a little quicker. From the grommet under the dash by the kick panel I proceeded under the drivers door sill and up the B pillar. I then came back toward the middle of the drivers door opening and crossed between the roof and the curtain air bag. You don't want to run the wire on the between the curtain airbag and the headliner! If the airbag were to go off it would shred the wire and possibly create a fire. Again, fire is bad. By routing the wire behind the airbag you can minimize this risk. In a perfect world you'd avoid the airbags completely, but this thing has them EVERYWHERE so I'm making due with what I'm given.

After that I fed another long piece of copper wire from the drivers door opening to the overhead console area so I could pull the wire through.

Some careful feeding and pulling and I had what I was after:

Always better to have too much wire than not enough! After that I made use of the large stockpile of electrical tape that I have and wrapped everything up.

Can't quite get that darn channel cleaned out of all the debris from previous owners...

The new, longer ribbon cable for the Kenwood should arrive tomorrow and then I'll terminate all the connections and finish things up.

 

[bob91yj]

Put the wires in the chuck of an electric drill to make twisted pairs of wiring. I learned that trick when making twisted wiring for speed sensors on Allison Transmission's. It's a LONG way from the front to the back of a 45' transit bus.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Put the wires in the chuck of an electric drill to make twisted pairs of wiring. I learned that trick when making twisted wiring for speed sensors on Allison Transmission's. It's a LONG way from the front to the back of a 45' transit bus.

I've seen this done by some folks on the ol' YouTube but have never tried it myself. When my LED lights arrive I might give this a shot when running the wiring.

 

[Gallowbraid]

The new ribbon cable came in today (10 of them actually), so I finished up the install. First I double checked the pins on the new cable to ensure they had the same pitch and everything lined up.

All good! And more than enough length to make the connection.

Hooked it up to a bench power supply to make sure everything worked and what do you know, the pixies are running!

Finished up by wiring a connection into the panel with a 15A fuse and connecting the ground wire directly to the battery ground point on the chassis. Radios should typically be grounded directly to the chassis ground point or the negative stud on the battery. If you ground them to any ol' point on the body you might get noise or interference from other electrical components in the vehicle. Even the negative stud on the battery can give some interference if the vehicle has a battery monitoring system (I'm looking at you BMW).

I left the wiring I pulled for the CB circuit disconnected and secured inside the loom until the new radio arrives. After this I reinstalled the overhead console and continued researching remote mounting the microphone. I think I'm going to run an extension back through the overhead console to the very back panel so the mic will plug in there and hang out of the way. For now I'm tucking it under the sun visor on the drivers side.

I'm still working out antenna solutions...

 

[Scott B.]

I've seen this done by some folks on the ol' YouTube but have never tried it myself. When my LED lights arrive I might give this a shot when running the wiring.

I have done this before, and it works great.

However, make sure your wires are a bit longer than needed. Twisting the wires consumes length. Add 10 - 20% of extra length.

 

[Gallowbraid]

New shoes, BFG KO2s in the stock size 275/65/18. I debated between the BFGs and the Terra Grappler G2s. Having owned both tires before and not having any problems with either of them it came down to a better price on the BFGs and their more aggressive side profile. Good looks is how you get ahead in life...as a tire.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Finished up the install on the radios. Was in a bit of a hurry so not many photos. Pretty much just finished up the power connections in the overhead console and then pulled coax cable from the rear hatch, up through a grommet under the rear storage box and up the b-pillar to the overhead console. I used a pair of Diamond K400 antenna mounts to attach to the rear hatch. One day they'll be mounted to a roof rack, but not until Gobi has some sort of fantastic sale.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Had the chance to press the trailer into service this weekend. Runs to Lowes for pine straw and fertilizer count as extreme overlanding, right?

So much easier pulling this thing around with the Sequoia over the Tacoma. Can't wait to get this thing out in the woods soon.

 

[bob91yj]

It's a rare occasion that I find fault with your work. I'm not a fan of the microphone cords hanging there, seems they would swing on rough roads and slap the driver and passenger in the face/head.

 

[Gallowbraid]

It's a rare occasion that I find fault with your work. I'm not a fan of the microphone cords hanging there, seems they would swing on rough roads and slap the driver and passenger in the face/head.

Sometimes my passengers need to be slapped in the face/head.

Don't worry @bob91yj , working on a solution for that. I had a couple of retractable lanyard connectors, like you'd use on a name badge that I was going to use to reel them up and out of the way. Unfortunately they weren't quite strong enough. Ordering a pair of Gearkeepers that I'll mount inside the console on the opposite side from the radios. I'll attach them about 1/2 way down the mic wires and this will pull them up and hold them against the overhead console.

 

[bob91yj]

With your attention to detail, I should have known you had a solution in the works!

 

[Scott B.]

Sometimes my passengers need to be slapped in the face/head.

Don't worry @bob91yj , working on a solution for that. I had a couple of retractable lanyard connectors, like you'd use on a name badge that I was going to use to reel them up and out of the way. Unfortunately they weren't quite strong enough. Ordering a pair of Gearkeepers that I'll mount inside the console on the opposite side from the radios. I'll attach them about 1/2 way down the mic wires and this will pull them up and hold them against the overhead console.

View attachment 31221

LOL

 

[Gallowbraid]

LOL

Can't tell me you've never had one of those passengers...

 

[Scott B.]

Can't tell me you've never had one of those passengers...

You are correct - I certainly have.

That's why your comment was so funny - it hit close to home!

 

[Gallowbraid]

So it's time for a frank discussion about suspension. The only thing I know about suspension is that I know almost nothing about suspension. I've swapped control arm bushings on BMWs and done suspension work on dirt bikes and enduro motorcycles, but that's about it. With the exception of the Tacoma (which was lifted by the dealer before I bought it) all my 4WD vehicles have been stock height. 99% of the time that was fine.

Some of the recent adventures in the Tacoma were made much easier with the added ground clearance from it's mild lift. The Sequoia claims to have 10 inches of clearance stock. I find this hard to believe after crawling around under it. The low point seems to be the spare tire. While running the coax for the radios I discovered that my head will not fit between the lowest point of the spare and the ground...not even close. I'd like to be able to roll over rocks bigger than my head...that's a realistic goal right?

There are only a few commercially available kits on the market that I can find and they're all spacer lifts. ReadyLift makes a 3 inch lift that removes the factory raked stance, lifting the front 3 inches and the rear 1 inch. It also comes with the spacers and bolts needed to drop the differential an inch to maintain the factory geometry for the CV axles. The spacers front and rear both mount outside of the shock assembly so that there is no pre-load on the springs. This is a good thing right? Otherwise the spring rate is affected and that makes the ride quality harsher?

The other lift that I can find is a 12 inch lift that allows the Sequoia to be able to run 38" tires. That sounds cool as heck, but I don't need that...and it's $7000.

The other option seems to be to piece together something for the front that matches an 09 Tundra (lots of options here) and then using a spacer in the back. This seems to involve a bit of guess work and trial and error to get things leveled out. Trial and error plus guess work = $$$ I believe. I'm leaning toward the ReadyLift kit at the moment unless you folks here convince me it's a horrible idea.

Suggestions? Comments? Teach me about suspension?

 

[TangoBlue]

TOYTEC makes a very good suspension that our 00-07 Sequoia customers have been very satisfied with. They only offer front CO for your year/generation but you might call them to see what they recommend for the rear.

Why are you concerned about "leveling" the truck? Toyota engineers designed your truck to have some forward rake... I've never understood this American obsession for a "level" truck only to reduce load capacity, braking performance, and handling. I love it when they come back bitching that their "Franken-suspension" squats in the back when they load it for camping, brakes poorly and handles like a tuna boat.

If your goal is to roll over rocks as big as your head I recommend that you reassess that driving technique. We recommend that you drive over that obstacle with your tire, thus avoiding those sensitive bits under your truck, as your 4WD truck is intended to do. Sorry, that sounds insensitive, but how else do you say driving over obstacles, sans portals, is dumb. I have beau coup clearance and I still drive over obstacles with my tires if only to maintain that skill.

 

[Gallowbraid]

TOYTEC makes a very good suspension that our 00-07 Sequoia customers have been very satisfied with. They only offer front CO for your year/generation but you might call them to see what they recommend for the rear.

Why are you concerned about "leveling" the truck? Toyota engineers designed your truck to have some forward rake... I've never understood this American obsession for a "level" truck only to reduce load capacity, braking performance, and handling. I love it when they come back bitching that their "Franken-suspension" squats in the back when they load it for camping, brakes poorly and handles like a tuna boat.

If your goal is to roll over rocks as big as your head I recommend that you reassess that driving technique. We recommend that you drive over that obstacle with your tire, thus avoiding those sensitive bits under your truck, as your 4WD truck is intended to do. Sorry, that sounds insensitive, but how else do you say driving over obstacles, sans portals, is dumb. I have beau coup clearance and I still drive over obstacles with my tires if only to maintain that skill.

Now I'm learning! I guess I had never considered that the factory raked stance actually served a purpose. The F150's I've had always carried a steep rake to their stance and somewhere in the back of my head I knew that was so I could load the bed down with stuff and the truck wouldn't sag and wallow around like a "tuna boat". I just hadn't put two and two together and made that realization for other vehicles I suppose. I guess the fact that almost every lift I've ever seen advertised claims to "level the vehicle" or "remove the factory rake" is just marketing to what Americans want...that leveled stance. I have yet to find a good source of information online about lifting vehicles the "right way". Almost every search string I can come up with returns 4WD articles that gloss over details or endless forums posts of armchair cowboys claiming their way is best with great contradictions between posts. I suppose there's some good information out there somewhere, but my limited knowledge of suspension components and their geometric applications keeps me from applying that generic information to my specific application.

Based on my brief time at the Appalachian Rendezvous last year and the condensed 4WD 101 class that was given I have an understanding of the method and purpose of putting your wheels up on obstacles. Perhaps I should have reworded my desire to roll over rocks the size of my head. I guess even with the wheels up on said obstacles I'm concerned about how low that spare tire hangs, and the overall departure angle of the vehicle (the trailer hitch and rear bumper are quite low). With those things in mind I'm assuming now that the main purpose of a lift is to allow the driver to run a larger tire, thus giving the vehicle not only more ground clearance but allowing a larger contact patch (bigger diameter tire = better traction?) and more clearance between the elements connected to the hub and the ground? This change in height will also positively affect approach and departure angles correct?

I see that Toytec offers both a CO option for the front and a spacer option. I understand what the physical difference is between the two, but what are the pros and cons? Does the CO offer increased travel over a spacer kit? Other benefits?

I appreciate your knowledge on this topic @TangoBlue !

I guess the other information to share would be examples of the obstacles the vehicle is going to see most often. What I'm attempting to do is to outfit it so that my family can comfortably tour the US and Canada, whether that be on highway or off. From my experience with rental vehicles over in my Ultimate Adventure Thread I get that a stock vehicle will go almost everywhere that I want to go. There have been times, however, that I have turned those rental vehicles around because I was sure that a stock vehicle wouldn't be able to proceed without suffering some damage. In the case of my time in Berdoo Canyon outside Joshua Tree I managed to hang a stock 4x4 F150 up on a rock, damaging the front right quarter panel. I also foolishly proceeded down a couple of rock ledges that, due to a poor approach angle, the truck would not have made it back up. There are probably a number of things that would have helped in those situations: a spotter, more refined driving skills, a better line and perhaps more ground clearance. Here on the east coast the truck is most likely to see obstacles like these: