The Elephant in the Room
Hello. A friend of mine told me about this site. I'm not sure if he's a member or not. He prolly will be as soon as he acquires a vehicle to ecomod. I've been checking it out for the past week and a few days ago I became a member. Currently I've got my V6 Tundra which I'm looking to moderately mod out. It's designed for fuel economy much like an elephant is designed for tight rope walking. If I can save up the money, I might try to get a cheap Geo Metro or something similar which I won't mind getting drastic with. The only other thing I have is a 94 Honda Magna, which I may end up trading for that Metro or something which would go a little better in the rain and the cold. For now though, I need help training my elephant on the balance beam. :p
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Welcome to ecomodder! What kinda mileage are you getting with the truck, right now?
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To my best estimate, I get between 18 and 20mpg. The summer gas seems to run closer to the 20 mark. I'm considering getting a Scan Gauge so that I can keep better and more accurate track of my fuel mileage.
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The SG is definitely the way to go, with some mods and driving tweaks you should easily climb up higher in the 20s.
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Welcome to EM.
What is your daily commute like? |
At the moment, there is no commute. I'll be starting a new job soon and it's about a 45 to 60minute trip. So that's why I'm so interested in fuel economy all of the sudden. That and the price of gas is expected to go much higher before long. The non-highway route is the most direct. There are a few stop lights, but the route is mostly a straight shot. There are some hills and some turns and some straight aways. It goes through a couple small town centers where the speed limit goes down to 30, but for the most part it's between 45 and 55. I'll be working the night shift, so for the most part, I should be alone on the road for the way there. The way back will involve some traffic.
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If you can stay off the highway you are going to much better off. If you can stay off the brakes in the small towns you are going to get even better mileage. I'd still seriously look at a cheap small car though as it'll easily double if not triple your mileage.
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That's the eventual plan, but I need to make a few paychecks and pay a few bills first. As the weather warms up, I'll prolly be able to commute my bike and get around 40mpg, but it needs a bit of work first. I just discovered that I have a leaky fork seal.
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If you do not plan on using the 4wd feature on your truck over the summer, can you remove the shaft? That should help you also..
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I'll have to look into that. There have been a few times where I needed to put it into 4wd in the in-law's driveway, even when there was no snow. Mostly it was to access the low range so that I didn't burn my clutch when doing some creative tight maneuvering (long story). Even if I do disconnect the drive shaft, the front wheels will still turn the front axles, which will still turn the front diff. I'm not sure how much difference the drive shaft will make at that point. I've looked into locking hubs, but that seems like an expensive and labor intensive route. I think my first step is to get the SG so that I know what benefit I actually reap from the mods that I do. I'm hoping to put a little tax rebate money toward that so I should have one in maybe a couple weeks. Once I have that, I'll get under the truck and see what I can disconnect.
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Hiya Twerp -
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...es_the_egg.jpg CarloSW2 |
Actually you can solve your 4wd problem easily and relatively affordably IF the option is available for your truck. When your NOT in 4wd the front shaft should not be turning but you are right the axles MIGHT be. Depends on your car CALL the dealer to find out.
If they DO look into after market HUBS for your car. You can get manually locking hubs or auto hubs (which your car SHOULD already have) to make sure the hubs unlock drive briskly in reverse for 30-50 feet. This should disengage the hubs and now your front wheels should spin freely WITHOUT spinning your axles of front drive shaft. If yours do NOT have unlocking hubs you can look into after maker hubs. |
I sniffed around a Toyota Tundra forum and they were all talking about having to add either manual or automatic locking hubs because the stock hubs are permanently engaged. I'll do some research by jacking up the front end and spinning the wheels as soon as the weather gets a little better.
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If they spin try doing the reverse thing 40-50 feet stiff good acceleration (thats what my jeep needs sometimes to disengage the hubs)
IF that don;t work confirm with the dealer how there supposed to work and if always engaged look into new hubs. IIRC there not "that" expensive and should pay for themselves pretty quickly in both gas savings and driveline wear savings. Just make sure you "PUT" it in 4wd every now and then to lube up and grease all the 4wd components. |
Welcome to the site twerp, on the topic of hubs, a hub kit for you Tundra runs around $800-$1000 for parts alone, then depending you may or may not need new wheels if the hub doesn't fit through your center bore. Its driveway do able but I don't know how mechanically inclined you are. I know for TJs swapping the auto hubs for manual ones doesn't net that big of a gain. Something on the order of .5-1 mpg.
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WOW I do not remember them costing to much! I would definitely do the econ math before undertaking that project. I guess there a lot cheaper for older jeeps :-)
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I would have to see some estimates as to how many miles per gallon it would save me. Still, my gut tells me that I would not be able to justify the expense of a hub change. There's nothing in the owner's manual about reversing to disengage the hubs, so they are either permanently fixed or they just automatically disengage when 2wd is selected. I may still jack up the front end to figure that one out for curiosity's sake.
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Well there is one way to find out for sure. Depends on your car. Remove the hubs all together. Costs nothing and you can now test your MPG do some math and see if its worth it. Check ebay for cheaper even used unlocking hubs. $800 would make me seriously think twice. I would need it to be lower than $400 before I personally would consider it.
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Nerys, your XJ has the vacuum disco HP D30 right? You'd still be stuck using the Warn or Milemarker kit. On the Waggy you could just swap in manual hubs off another truck I think. |
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to abandon the disconnection of the front wheels at least for now. As soon as I can get a SG, I'll start looking into some aero mods first. I'm going to start with a Phil Knox style aero cap and then I might block off the front grill. From there, I might look into disconnecting hubs.
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It was a nice day yesterday, so I got under my truck and did some investigating. I found that when the truck rolls back and forth, the front axles turn but the front drive shaft does not. After looking at the owner's manual, I found out that it has an Automatic Disconnecting Differential. I guess I'm not the only one with ADD. So evidently the front wheels disengage at the differential instead of the hubs. Works for me, I guess.
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Thats fine then the added friction from the front axles is minimal at best IE you could not measure the difference with them off and the additional mass of the locking hubs would offset the friction loss of installing them. IE no gain. so No worries :-)
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Hey, Twerp - welcome to the forum.
Awesome avatar. :) Definitely, definitely get a ScanGauge. It'll pay for itself in no time with the amount of fuel you'll be saving. If the price seems steep, I like to remind people that you could always use it for 6 months to fine tune your driving and then sell it later and get most of your money back. There's no shortage of people looking to buy these. (But I bet you won't be selling it once you get your hands on one.) If I had a truck I was using for commuting, that'd be step one, followed immediately by driving adjustments. Have you browsed the list of driving tactics? As well, I'd be looking into aero mods - particularly partial grille block and an aero cap. (I'll assume you've checked out the aero forum). Can't fault Daox's advice about keeping your eyes open for a cheap, small beater, too. It'll be interesting to see where you go with this. |
ScanGauge is definitely the first step. I still haven't started the new job yet, so hopefully my tax rebate will be coming soon and I'll buy the SG with that. I have read the driving tactics and I've already started to practice some of them while doing errands and such.
Once the SG is in place, I'll start experimenting with aero mods. I plan on doing an aero cap, a partial grille block, fill ins for the fog light holes and I'm going to experiment with deleting that front spoiler. Since I have really nice heated electric mirrors, I'd rather not delete those, but I may turn them in against the side of the truck and cap the ends of them with smaller after market mirrors. I figure I can at least reduce their profile that way. I've already picked up some beaded seat covers so that I can hopefully cut my use of the AC this summer. I plan on tinting the windows (although it is illegal around here). As far as getting a cheap beater, well, that might be a bit challenging. Anything that's not completely destroyed around here costs around 5 grand. At least, this is according to my friend who searched high and low and finally ended up financing a brand new Toyota Yaris. I may follow suit or I may stumble upon a really good deal, but I need to pay some bills first. |
Check www.craigslist.org daily. Theres always a deal lurking on there.
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