I had an opportunity to do some design work on a few things on the truck and have made some progress on a few fronts.
Electric fan conversion: I just ordered the last of the parts. I have a final wiring diagram that gives me all the functionality and control I could ever want. I got a spare Tacoma fan shroud and have begun cutting and fitting the shroud to accept my two Camry fans. FYI, they don't fit very well but I am going to make them work anyway. Basically the two fans are more of a rectangle and the Tacoma shroud is more of a square, but after over-analyzing it, I figured out a way to get them mounted by putting them in opposite corners and angling one out so that they slightly overlap. Note I am rebuilding the shroud so that each fan vents a portion of the radiator, so functionally the “overlap” doesn't matter due to the ducting. It was either overlap or extend out past. Anyway I have been using a soldering iron to heat weld the plastic from the Tacoma shroud to the plastic from the Camry E-fan shroud. Once I am done, I will remove all the stock parts and be able to install the newly welded up Tacoma shroud with E-fans already integrated in place.
HVAC Blower Motor: The blower motor started making an awful noise on high, sounded like it was out of balance or the bearings were shot. Doing a bit of research, looked like bearings going out was fairly common, to the extent Toyota redesigned the part. Ordered the new part, went in to replace it and to my surprise what do I see when I drop the old fan and motor but a nut sitting in the fan blades. I had a mouse living in the air intake and had built a nest on top of the air cleaner. The mouse decided to carry some nuts into his home, one of which made it through the air filter and was on my fan blower. I cleaned the mess out and scared the mouse away. I just put the old blower motor back in the truck for now, need to order a new filter. To prevent recurrance, I took some perforated aluminum I had lying around and made a cover for the air intake. Toyota, why was this not installed from the factory? This could have been a $5 part at most, plus you even had mounting holes for me to bolt into stamped in the sheet metal of this part. I don't know that my design is the best as it blocked off about half of the net clear opening, but it was what I had on hand. A heavy duty welded mesh with 1/2" or so openings would have been better.
