cruise controll

I have a pommy vehicle built 1974 that has cruise control standard.

Would the electrics be Lucas by any chance??

He He

I was talking about my first one with cruise control .. not the first ones built ..

gmd

If the driver is drowsy, it isn't the cruise that is dangerous.

It is equally easy to drowse off and keep travelling at speed WITHOUT cruise control.

Therefore cruise control is NOT dangerous.

Actually Gerhard I have a funny story that supports what Alan is saying. I do agree also that it is only the driver that is the dangerous bit in the equation.

When my brother & I were young we flew to Los Angeles and brought an old Ford V8 station wagon (Ford Galaxy I think) from the first car yard we saw when we walked out of the airport. We brought it for $600 and over the next 3 months drove over 20,000 miles around the USA, sleeping in the wagon for the entire trip and came back to the same airport and sold it for $800 at the front door to some tourists then jumped on the plane and flew home.
As you can imagine we did some big runs and fatigue was an issue at times. When we were driving across the Arizona Desert I was dozing off to sleep in the passenger seat and my brother was driving at about 2am. That is the last thing we can remember.
At about 6:30am we awoke to a cop tapping on the glass of the drivers door. The sun was up, the engine was still running,the headlights were on, the car was in drive and we were stopped right in the middle of the highway with the white centre line running exactly under he middle of the car.
As it turns out my brother fell asleep on a section that had a slight uphill gradient. As he fell asleep he must have lifted his foot off the accelerator and because we were going uphill the car gradually slowed to the point where it had stopped with the auto transmission just holding it stationary on the rise.
We don't know how long we had been there or how many cars/trucks had driven around us but it felt like the sort of thing you see in a weird movie. Our best guess is that we were parked there for over 3 hours.
I guess that in this case cruise control would have seen us plough off the side of the highway somewhere at full speed.

In saying this I have just fitted cruise control to my 80 series and I love it on the long trips. Alan I would go ahead and fit it to your current 80 series now. It only cost me $165 for the AP-50 kit and about 3 hours to fit it. As the 80 is constant 4wd I have fitted the sensor to the front drive shaft and the set up works great. We have a brand new Commodore at work and the C/C that I have just fitted is smoother and holds it's speed better than the factory C/C on the Commodore. Actually the C/C on the Commodore would see you cop a fine as it regulary goes up to 4 or 5 km/h over the speed you have set it at. The landcruiser only seems to vary 1km/h above or below the set speed.

Cheers,
Brett

Just a note of caution - brakes have to be "run in" on most vehicles, and doing a brake slam test as suggested will possibly ruin your brakes.

This applies to new cars and reconditioned brakes, eg new pads and disk machining.

Hi there friar, you will probably find that these options are together meaning you cant get one with out the other which was common back when I worked for toyota. Toyota use to be bad cause if you wanted the extras like cruise and stuff you normally use to have to buy the next model up to get it as it wasnt an option you could get seperatly (unless it was an after market item like cruise control) Glad to see they have changed that. Go for both you wont regret it one bit. As mentioned above if you do have the choice between the two I would go the ABS if your budget doesnt extend enough for the cruise as well. If they are both an option you should be able to get the cruise fitted at a later date when you can afford it. ABS could save your life hopefully you wont ever have to worry about it. As said above try the abs out in a back street some where. When I worked for the smash repairs we use to have a lot of people say the pedal started to pulsate so they took there foot off the brake and bang into the car infront of them, it scared them. Same as any emergency situation, nail your foot on the brake as hard as you can and hold it there, this will allow the abs to do its job and hopefully avoid what your braking for plus still give you steering control with out locking up. Regards Steve M