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Tue May 04, 2010 6:37 pm

I was looking for another audiovox cruise control kit for my other van, when I just discovered that they are no longer making them, and the places that do have a few left want between 200 and 500 for them!! I bought one about a year ago for like $90. Does anyone know of a simlilar product with a similar price that works good in a vanagon? Thanks.

Wed May 05, 2010 4:08 am

http://www.fixthisride.com/showproductdetail.jsp?prod_id=33495

Thu Nov 10, 2011 9:24 am

Bump.

For anyone doing a search on the CCS-100, I found two sources for the CCS-100 at "under $200". Murphskits sells the CCS-100 for $170 and Sunn Battery in Jacksonville, FL sells it for $175 (buy it now) on eBay.

I've dealt with Murph in the past and highly recommend them.

Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:26 pm

here is a very useful pin switch position list for the Audiovox..

it made mine perform very well
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3761748&highlight=audiovox#3761748

and thanks to JohnHinPG for the pin settings:

"If you have a manual transmission remove the black jumper connector and discard (left side of switch 1). Removing this jumper allows the unit to automatically switch off should it sense a rapid increase in engine RPM. This would occur should you depress the clutch without turning off the cruise unit. This prevents engine from over revving."

My cruise now shuts off when revs climb 1000rpm while depressing the clutch.. BEAUTIFUL!

and thanks to JohnHinPG for the pin settings:

1 VSS Settings ON or OFF Does not matter as per instruction manual
2 VSS Settings OFF or ON Does not matter as per instruction manual
3 Speed Signal OFF Tach only input
4 Sensitivity OFF Medium or High Sensitivity
5 Sensitivity ON High Sensitivity (set to OFF for medium)
6 Control settings OFF Use of included dash control pad
7 Tach Source ON Coil as motion input source

on my unit pin 3 is on and pin 7 is on, but I had very poor speed holding on hills, and very weak acceleration from the cruise unit when pressing accelerate.

I discovered my pin 5 was in the OFF position but thanks to the above pin list, I switched it to ON. This made the cruise control work properly, with good acceleration and speed holding on hills

Fri Nov 11, 2011 10:30 am

Interesting... did you use an added vacuum accumulator or just the basic actuator?

Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:09 pm

Bump.

I finally pulled the trigger on this project and am now about half way through it. The servo and vacuum canister are bolted down, the throttle linkage is hooked up, and most of the engine bay wiring is done. The wire run forward to the cockpit is next, followed by the actual control wiring at the wheel.

I want to acknowledge the invaluable help of a good friend, Jimmy Fink, who got me off dead center on the installation and who came up with a brilliant solution to mounting the servo's control cable.

Second, somehow I missed the following article. With this article and the installation manual, everything you need to know in your hands. Except for Jimmy's brilliant solution - ya gotta wait until I'm done with the job and can take a picture of the results.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090418181915/http://v...se_control

NOTE: the original article, on vanagonwiki.net, no longer exists. web.archive.org is the only source for the full article. Good on whoever wrote it!

Thu Jan 26, 2012 4:55 pm

The installation is complete, the unit works like a charm. Now to install the automatic shift lever and clutch pedal actuators... :wink:

Bottom line: follow the article cited above. I mounted the control buttons in the space under the rear window defogger switch (sometimes used for fog lights). I lead the four conductor cable forward along the cabinetry on the left side, through the auxiliary battery box, and under the carpet to dash. I tapped the ground and instrument light B+ from the leads for the light for the rear seat blower switch.

Once again, great thanks to Jimmy for getting me off TDC on this project. It turned out to be easier than expected.

Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:06 am

This is the after action report on installing a CCS-100 cruise control in a '90 Westy with a GW 2.2L WBX motor. The job was much easier than I expected. I've modified an existing how-to and will post that as soon as I can figure out how to send up a PDF of the document.

Here are the main points of the job:
The CCS-100 used to be sold as the AudioVox CCS-100. AudioVox is no longer selling the CCS-100. The good news is a motorcycle accessories dealer, Murph's Kits, is selling the CCS-100 in OEM form (white box with all the parts sold by AudioVox, on-line instructions must be downloaded) - see www.murphskits.com for the details.

Although opinions vary on the point, buy the vacuum reserve canister at the same time you buy the CCS-100. Some comments say it's not needed, some say a check valve and reserve is needed. Get the reserve - it's only $17.

The CCS-100 senses the brake lights going on to release throttle control. If the brake lights use LED's, an additional sensing relay is needed. If a brake light goes out, the unit may not assert throttle control. Think about adding the relay kit to the order.

Vacuum source... I shudder think how much time I wasted on this issue. It's easy - tap the vacuum line going to the fuel pressure regulator.

Throttle linkage connection... this, too, turned out to be far easier than expected. Drill a hole in the bracket holding the stock throttle cable and use the existing hardware as an attachment point (this last comment makes more sense when you have all the parts in front of you).

Electrical connections... The CCS-100 will accept VSS data (none available in a stock VW bus or van through '91 - maybe in an EV?), it can use the included magnetic pickup kit (strap magnets to a CV joint next to the tranny, put a sensor near the CV joint), or it can use low voltage (12V) pulses to the ignition coil. The coil connection is by far the easiest option.

Controls... The "control panel" is a small flat pad with two rocker switches. It might be possible to adapt the VW cruise control stalk to work with the CCS-100 (PM me for details) but I couldn't find one and they are NLA, anyway. The controls need a maximum of four wires (there's a way to eliminate one wire - PM me on that, too) between the engine area and the instrument area up front. At least in a Westy, the wire can be run inside without much trouble.

Is it worth it? At least for us, heck yeah! On long drives, a) it relieves gas pedal leg cramping and b) it holds speed constant (think about the speed creeping up as you approach a speed trap...). Other than seeing a small grey pad on the instrument cluster, it's completely transparent if you're not using it. There's no drag on the throttle, no impact on engine performance. And just maybe, driving at a constant speed, you might just pick up a little bit of improvement in gas mileage. Or not...

Down side? Well, you'll be out $200 for all the bits and pieces, and it's maybe a 4-6 hour job to install it. There are a couple of additional bits and pieces in the engine bay, and some added wiring in the vehicle. Other than that, the impact of adding the cruise control is minimal.

Safety issues? The CCS-100 disengages when one or more of the following happens:
Power is switched off
Brake lights come on
Engine speed increases suddenly (uncommanded speed increase - e. g. stepping on the clutch while the cruise control is engaged)
In short, the CCS-100 works like any other automotive cruise control.

During road tests I found that stepping on the clutch to shift gears, while the cruise control was engaged, didn't entail any surprises. The cruise control dropped out with only about a 100 RPM bump in engine speed. Even that bump didn't last long enough to be an issue.

I used the CCS-100 on a '99 Kawasaki Concours motorcycle and it worked like a charm. The only problem I had was from using 3M's "vampire clip" taps - these things are a problem looking to happen, regardless of the application they're used in!

Why not use the VW cruise control? If you can find a donor vehicle with a complete, working cruise control system, go for it. Bentley will probably get you through the job. OTOH, if you're going to assemble the cruise control parts by haunting flea markets, web sites, or FLAPS... save your time and money. Unless you're incredibly lucky, it's going to be a long time before you can rebuild the stock cruise control system. This is something that makes sense only for a full-on restoration.

Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:19 pm

RBEmerson wrote: Electrical connections... The CCS-100 will accept VSS data (none available in a stock VW bus or van through '91 - maybe in an EV?), it can use the included magnetic pickup kit (strap magnets to a CV joint next to the tranny, put a sensor near the CV joint), or it can use low voltage (12V) pulses to the ignition coil. The coil connection is by far the easiest option.

What about the stock cruise control speed sensor off the back of the tach? Seems like that would work if you had the part from a donor.

Although, since you are already back in the engine compartment, the coil is probably still the best option.

Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:37 am

There was no cruise control in the vehicle to start with. I needed to get a cruise control working sooner than later (extended trip coming up soon). For those reasons, among others, it made more sense to start from scratch. Also, I have no idea what the VW tach sensor would put out even if it were present. I know what the CCS-100 expects and I know where to get that data.

Had I time, patience, and sufficient skills, I might have installed the CCS-100 speed sensor. The down side to the coil as the speed source is CCS-100, strictly speaking, becomes an engine speed control. Engage the control while in third gear, shift up (or down), hit RESUME, and the engine tries to keep the same engine speed, not the same road speed. In a VW, this isn't a likely scenario. On the Kawasaki, with a 6-speed tranny, I surprised myself a couple of times. :shock:

Wed Feb 01, 2012 9:04 am

This is the after action report on installing a CCS-100 cruise control in a '90 Westy with a GW 2.2L WBX motor. The job was much easier than I expected. I've modified an existing how-to and will post that as soon as I can figure out how to send up a PDF of the document.

Here are the main points of the job:
The CCS-100 used to be sold as the AudioVox CCS-100. AudioVox is no longer selling the CCS-100. The good news is a motorcycle accessories dealer, Murph's Kits, is selling the CCS-100 in OEM form (white box with all the parts sold by AudioVox, on-line instructions must be downloaded) - see www.murphskits.com for the details.

Servo installation

The servo is mounted in the right rear corner of the engine bay. In this photo, the air intake hose has been pulled to show the servo. This particular Vanagon GL has power steering. The reservoir has also been moved to show the servo. Neither the intake hose or the power steering lines or reservoir interfere with the servo or vice versa. The small hose coming from the servo is the vacuum line from the vacuum reserve canister. The wiring from the servo is in the ribbed casing below the vacuum hose.

Although opinions vary on the point, buy the vacuum reserve canister at the same time you buy the CCS-100. Some comments say it's not needed, some say a check valve and reserve is needed. Get the reserve - it's only $17.

Vacuum reserve canister

The installation is simple: two machine screws (supplied with the CCS-100) hold the canister in place. Supplied vacuum hose and a tee tap into the vacuum line going to the fuel pressure regulator. So far, in driving tests, there's been no problem with tapping the line. The canister has a one-way valve built into it. (In this photo, the power steering reservoir is out of its mount - that's not where it is now, of course)

The CCS-100 senses the brake lights going on to release throttle control. If the brake lights use LED's, an additional sensing relay is needed. If a brake light goes out, the unit may not assert throttle control. Think about adding the relay kit to the order.

Vacuum source... I shudder think how much time I wasted on this issue. It's easy - tap the vacuum line going to the fuel pressure regulator.

Throttle linkage connection... this, too, turned out to be far easier than expected. Drill a hole in the bracket holding the stock throttle cable and use the existing hardware as an attachment point. The photo below should explain this clearly. The stock throttle cable has bellows around it. The bead chain puts slack in the CCS-100 throttle cable, to allow using the stock throttle without interference.

CCS-100 Servo throttle cable

Electrical connections... The CCS-100 will accept VSS data (none available in a stock VW bus or van through '91 - maybe in an EV?), it can use the included magnetic pickup kit (strap magnets to a CV joint next to the tranny, put a sensor near the CV joint), or it can use low voltage (12V) pulses to the ignition coil. The coil connection is by far the easiest option.

Controls... The "control panel" is a small flat pad with two rocker switches. It might be possible to adapt the VW cruise control stalk to work with the CCS-100 (PM me for details) but I couldn't find one and they are NLA, anyway. The controls need a maximum of four wires (there's a way to eliminate one wire - PM me on that, too) between the engine area and the instrument area up front. At least in a Westy, the wire can be run inside without much trouble.

Is it worth it? At least for us, heck yeah! On long drives, a) it relieves gas pedal leg cramping and b) it holds speed constant (think about the speed creeping up as you approach a speed trap...). Other than seeing a small grey pad on the instrument cluster, it's completely transparent if you're not using it. There's no drag on the throttle, no impact on engine performance. And just maybe, driving at a constant speed, you might just pick up a little bit of improvement in gas mileage. Or not...

Down side? Well, you'll be out $200 for all the bits and pieces, and it's maybe a 4-6 hour job to install it. There are a couple of additional bits and pieces in the engine bay, and some added wiring in the vehicle. Other than that, the impact of adding the cruise control is minimal.

Safety issues? The CCS-100 disengages when one or more of the following happens:
Power is switched off
Brake lights come on
Engine speed increases suddenly (uncommanded speed increase - e. g. stepping on the clutch while the cruise control is engaged)
In short, the CCS-100 works like any other automotive cruise control.

During road tests I found that stepping on the clutch to shift gears, while the cruise control was engaged, didn't entail any surprises. The cruise control dropped out with only about a 100 RPM bump in engine speed. Even that bump didn't last long enough to be an issue.

I used the CCS-100 on a '99 Kawasaki Concours motorcycle and it worked like a charm. The only problem I had was from using 3M's "vampire clip" taps - these things are a problem looking to happen, regardless of the application they're used in!

Why not use the VW cruise control? If you can find a donor vehicle with a complete, working cruise control system, go for it. Bentley will probably get you through the job. OTOH, if you're going to assemble the cruise control parts by haunting flea markets, web sites, or FLAPS... save your time and money. Unless you're incredibly lucky, it's going to be a long time before you can rebuild the stock cruise control system. This is something that makes sense only for a full-on restoration.

Wed Feb 01, 2012 12:28 pm

Good write up. I wonder if the stock vanagon cruise control switch could be adapted. They were availble new from GW recently for that stock look, but modern reliable function. I can't imagine driving long distances without cruise control. Thanks for the write up and updates. Enjoy your road trip. mark

Wed Feb 01, 2012 2:02 pm

I'm glad to hear the writeup is helpful.

The CCS-100 needs four momentary switch contacts:1 ON
2 OFF
3 SET / COAST
4 RESUME / ACCEL
There are three wires for cruise control activity12 VDC out - goes to servo (controlled by ON & OFF???)
SET - goes to servo
RESUME - goes to servo
The servo defaults to normally open contacts but can be set to accept normally closed (open to signify state change). I have no idea how the servo copes with an ON/OFF switch (open off, closed on).

There are six wires in the control pad bundle - the three listed above, 12 VDC in (from a switched B+), backlighting (tied to the instrument lights), and a ground (for the lights). I sent 12 VDC in back to the servo as well as the other three wires for control. The servo needs 12 VDC; it can be tapped from a couple of sources in the engine bay, but I opted to send it back in the wire bundle between the control pad and the servo.

If GW still has these, I can't find them. I looked around for a turn signal stalk with the cruise control buttons and... nada. Worse, they're NLA from VW. If one showed up and I could run through it with an ohmmeter, I might just jump for it anyway.

I tried a stalk which is supposed to be an AudioVox part. Either the switch is hosed or it's not meant to work with the CCS-100. Pressing SET or RESUME signaled both SET and RESUME. Not good.

PM me if you want a copy of the how-to PDF. All I can post here are JPG's of PDF's and they're pretty messy to live with.

DISCLAIMER: I have no connection with AudioVox or Murph's Kits save as a customer.

Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:12 am

We've now lived with the installation for over 1000 miles, driving mainly US 17 and FL A1A, but with two brief stretches of I-95. It turns out I was a little quick to call the job done and working. Quite simply, the control would engage at any speed below about 50-52 MPH in 4th gear. Above that, up to about 55 MPH (all speeds as per GPS - the speedo indicates about 5% under true speed), the gas pedal moved (indicating the servo was activating) but there was no speed control. Gngh!!!

Long story short, I finally pulled the servo out, and made two changes to the DIP switch settings: Sw1 and Sw2 from ON and OFF to OFF and ON (PPM setting from 4000 to 5000) and Sw4 and Sw5 from OFF and ON to OFF and OFF (sensitivity from High to Medium).

Since the unit worked fine up to about 50 MPH, I wondered if maybe the coil was triggered too often for the 4000 PPM setting. This is purely a guess and, in fact, may have no effect on the servo, because the servo is using only coil data and not the magnetic speed sensor or VSS data.

The sensitivity setting was clearly too high - there was far too much hunting (accelerate, slow down, accelerate, slow down) at lower speeds and some at higher speeds. With the medium sensitivity setting, overall feel is much better.

However, the bottom line is that one or both of these changes now allows the servo to reliably control the throttle at 65 MPH for extended periods. We drove from Stuart, FL to Wellington, FL on a mix of I-95 and Florida's Turnpike with the CCS-100 maintaining 65 MPH without a hitch. Also, general speed control while climbing or descending grades (mainly steep bridge ramps over rivers and inlets) is very good.

- - -

Two comments... First, we observe the posted speed limits, particularly on back roads. While I prefer to run local "fast" roads at about 9 over the posted limit, we're sticking with what's posted rather than have a chat with LEO. So the cruise control is used even in places posted 25, 30, 35, 40, etc. It avoids that sick feeling of seeing blinking lights because we're 10 over in a 25 MPH zone...

I could pull the servo again to undo each of the two changes to see which one allows the servo to work at 65 MPH or higher. Truth is, though, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

One thing to keep in mind: the CCS-100 manual says to disconnect the cable from the servo when changing the DIP switch settings. I installed the wiring, set the DIP switches, and went driving. This time, I pulled the cable, then set the DIP switches, and went driving. It's very possible the CCS-100 remembered some or all of the settings when I made changes the first time. With the cable pulled the second time, there was no chance of power to the CCS-100 and thus all DIP switch settings were lost until the servo was powered up.

Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:47 pm

Here's something I'm not 100% clear on:

If you're using the black wire from the grey/black pair on a VSS, do you STILL use the blue tach signal wire in ADDITION to that,
or is it one or the other?

Mon Jul 23, 2012 6:53 pm

It's VSS or tach sensing, not both. IMHO, tapping the low voltage coil wiring is easier than rigging up the VSS sensor, magnets, etc.

HTH!

Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:20 pm

RBEmerson wrote: It's VSS or tach sensing, not both. IMHO, tapping the low voltage coil wiring is easier than rigging up the VSS sensor, magnets, etc.

HTH!

Thank you!!!
I'm already going to be running a VSS for my Subie conversion so it's no big deal.
This may sound dumb, but I was having a bugger of a time figuring out which was even the tach wire on the engine round connector. I must be going senile... or inhaling too much solder fumes lately! Lol

Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:16 pm

Da nada. IIRC, it's the green lead to the side of the coil (and the connector is on the side towards the engine). It should measure somewhere under 12V (IIRC) - if it's zero or close to it, that's not it. For sure, if it's 10-20KV, that's really not the lead you want. :lol: