Supa

I went for a trek into the bush today to do some shooting. when I went to go home I had no headlights, dash lights or rear DRL's. The head light switch was completely dead, no brights nothing. Truck is a 92 sr5 v6. The start up indicator lights worked when you turned the key, but went dead as soon as the car was running, no 4x4 display or ebrake signal, nothing.

Everything else worked, signals, 4 ways, brake lights, reverse lights, stereo, cigarette lighter.

I checked every fuse and none were blown, I pulled apart the dash to look for a loose connection and couldn't find any. its really weird. I'm assuming I shook something loose banging around on the logging roads but I'm terrible with electrical and am kinda lost.

Any idea where to look?

Thanks

Gevo

Oh man. Its a mess pf wires under the dash
If I kept track of your non working lights correctly I would suggest you check out your headlight switch. Seems like thw common factor ..

RAD4Runner

That^^, and many more. Unfortunately the wiring for the Canadian (? With DRL?) model is more complicated; There's the additional integration (or shall I say complication) relay and a freakin ECU control for the lights!

lapo5000

Good chance it's the headlight switch. My old cdn model 4runner had exact same issue. Because of the drl there is always full voltage going through the switch and it just wears out the contacts. Auto wrecker and get a cpl spares to maybe build one good one.

Supa

Thank you guys. Ill source a new switch out today.

RAD4Runner

Yeah, and EVEN without the DRL, the poorly-designed wiring on the older models make the dimmer-switch combo carry full-current of the headlights (see explanation on my sig). H4 convvrsion is the best fix. However, that might dis-able your DRL.

dropzone

iTrader: (6)

The full current load on the switch was one reason I went with LED headlights

Supa

turns out the connection on the DRL relay that they put under the friggen stereo came loose. Just had to plug it tighter

4 DRL relays are in this truck if you include the resistor. WTF. to top it off there is one by the fuse panel and this one under the stereo. Why not just put them right beside each other?

RAD4Runner

Yup, you got those Trucklites, right? Those are great! I hope that prices would come down a little then I'll go for them.

Yes, I hate it when they have to complicate things. WTF? Why would you need to involve the ECU for controlling lights? Aren't humans smart enough to turn switch to turn on lights., turn them back to turn off lights?

YET, despite all the complications they added, they still have not fixed that basic wiring flaw that sends lamp current (9+ amps in low-beam) from battery, through fuse block, to headlamp relay, over about 15 feet of thin wire to cabin, to dimmer-switch, back to engine compartment, and finally fender ground!

janagyjr

18AWG wire can handle up to 18 amps of current, I wouldn't be too worried if the wire was smaller or the current in hi-beam exceeded that. That being said, it is ridiculous to have such a long run of high-current on small wire. Unfortunately, auto wiring is completely unregulated (not that I'm a fan of regulation, safety, however, I'm a big fan of).

edit: Here's a link to wire amapacity by AWG fwiw:
http://www.ee.nmt.edu/~wedeward/EE38...t_capacity.pdf