Salue

Ralph,
I don't believe I ground the cd player to the parking light wire because I used the wiring harness adapter. So, I didn't have to splice or ground to anything. I just connected the cd player's harness to the Toyota harness adapter so that it would be plug and play. I'm going to go check the dimmer switch now before it gets dark....Dang it!! I just put the whole dash back together, now it's coming off again. I'm getting a little too familiar with this dash . Will report back in a little bit.

Salue

Also, if I ground the cd to parking lights when I installed it wouldn't it have gone out since then. cuz it just went out this past Friday, and the CD was intalled last weekend....I don't know, just curious.

PhxTRDRunner

Well, that all depends how much you drive at night The radio would be unaffected until the first time you had both the radio and parking lights on at the same time!

Salue

Okay,
I disconnected the cd player completely and still no dash lights. I'm a little confused on what you want me to do. This is what I have done so far. First of all, I unplugged the dimmer switch and there are three wires back there. There's a green wire, a white wire w/black stripe and a white wire w/green stripe. So I stuck the positive prong from the meter into the green wire section and then stuck the negative into the white w/black wire. Turned the parking light on and it shows power. Then I left the negative prong in the dimmer switch and took the positive prong and just stuck it into the plug of the heater light and it shows power. I also tried leaving the negative prong and taking the positive prong and putting it into the white w/green wire of the dimmer switch and it gets power when I turn the parking light on. I also tried the cig lighter wires...There are 4 wires though, but they seem to split out of the same connector(if that makes sense). I plug my + prong into the green wire section and plug the - into the white w/black wire section. It gets power when I turn the parking lights on, but that little green light that surrounds the cig lighter doesn't come on though. But, the cig lighter works.......

So now what?

Salue

I'm not sure if I did what you said to do, a little confused.

PhxTRDRunner

Ok, so if I understand you correctly then you are showing both power and ground at the light at the cig. lighter. You can verify this by putting your ground prong into the white/black wire and your power (red) prong into the green wire. IF this shows power, the bulb is burnt out...and it is POSSIBLE that you burnt all the dash lights out (again possibly from the cd player install). Try going to your local autoparts store and getting at least one replacement bulb, so you can replace one and see if it lights up.



Eliminate the dimmer switch from your testing:

You still have not tried giving that circuit. ground signal manually. You can accomplish this by unplugging the dimmer switch - then connect a wire to ground (even just touch it by alligator clip) and the other end to the exposed white/black wire - then see if when you turn on the parking lights they turn on. This will eliminate the dimmer from the circuit and just make it a power/ground connection to make the lights light up.

Salue

I unplugged the dimmer switch, used one of my prongs that I unplugged from the meter and plugged one end into the white w/black wire and the other end onto a ground. I turned the parking lights on and....No dash lights. Now as far as getting a new bulb for the cig lighter or dash light, I don't even know where the bulbs are located. Does the cig lighter have a bulb, because it just hast that green lens that lights up around the lighter...Don't know, will have to check that in the morning. Also, where would the dash light bulb be? I've taken the whole guage console out but haven't taken the actual guage console apart(understand?). And, I'm also wondering about the heater light bulb that I bought a few days ago. The guy told me the one I got is a brighter bulb, but it's the same wattage as the original. They came in 2 pairs, so I took out the one I put in the other day and stuck in the 2nd new one and there's still no light there. So i'm not sure if there's power there. From my testing, it seems like it's getting power. But then the new bulb not lighting up doesn't make sense. I can't get to the back of this bulbs' harness, so when I checked it, I just grounded my - prong and just stuck the + prong into the actual socket that the bulb would go into. I guess this saga will have to continue tomorrow as it's too dark and I don't have a car hole to work in.

Thanks for everybody's input and patience. All this electrical stuff frightens me so I was thinking of having somebody look at it, but that's the last thing I want to do. I think we're headed in the right direction though.

Salue

butnut

Wow Salue...I feel for ya...troubleshooting is a bitch. Sound like you're getting some good help though. My experience with 'lights out' was when I did my footwell light mod. I accidentally 'sliced' one wire with the clip on my kick panel. Worked fine for a few days, and then the dome and foot lights went out. Took me hours to retrace and find a tiny cut on one wire. It DID blow the fuse though and I blew 2 more trying to find the problem. Check for any wires near any of the panels you R&R for a pinch or cut. Good luck.
butnut

Salue

Yeah Brian,
this troubleshooting is a pain. I'm just glad I have this site to get all this valuable info. Hopefully we are getting closer. Now i'm just waiting to see what somebody (Ralph ) suggest I do now.

Salue

PhxTRDRunner

Ok Salue, you are doing great over there..however I don't think you understood me completely when I was getting you to jump the ground to the white/black wire. You need to pull apart some part of your dash that has a interior light that lights up (an easy one is the light at the ash tray), unplug the dimmer switch (so that you do not damage it, in the case it is still ok), and THEN you will supply a ground to the white/black side of the wire (or whatever color it is at the light itself). Before you do that, verify that the "green" wire at that light does indeed have power - then jump a NEW ground wire (from a chassis point anywhere) to the other wire (get it??) so that you will know without a shadow of a doubt that you have power on the green wire, and ground on the other wire - this will complete the circuit, kind of manually - making the light come on.


Before you connect the ground to this single light (ash tray) that you find, make sure you cut the ground wire (the one not green) and supply your extra ground to the light, leaving the other end just dangling for now- the light SHOULD light up. IF it does, you can strip back the shielding from the dangling end, and twist it onto your temporary makeshift ground - and again try your parking lights - this should make all cabin lights light up that should with parking lights. IF that is true, you most likely have a bad dimmer switch - you can either leave it how it is now - with your extra ground and no dimmer, or replace the dimmer switch and remove your extra wiring -recconnect the wire and see if that did indeed fix it.


I will be working today in the field - if you are stuck, or want further help with this you can call my cell.


-Ralph
602-421-2202

p.s. I probably won't be back to check the forums until later this afternoon.

Salue

Ralph,
this is what I did. I figured out how to unplug the cig lighter light so I used that one. Okay, I took a wire and plugged it into the back of the terminal(cig lighter bulb) to touch the Red w/black wire(-) and then I ground that. Then I turned on the parking lights and...Voila!! I had dash lights again. This was all done with the dimmer switch unplugged. Also I tried taking the wire that was plugged into the negative of the cig lighter bulb and connected it straight to the white w/black wire (-) on the dimmer switch harness. I turned on the parking lights and ...Voila again, I had dash lights. The thing I don't understand is when I unplugged the wire that I plugged into the red w/black wire (-) of the cig lighter and just tried grounding(sp?) with just the dimmer switch (-) straight to a ground on the car..No lights. Can you explain to me why that doesn't work? Is that because the dimmer switch is bad like you said or something else?

Ralph, you are da man

To Cebby et al, thank you for all the help and suggestions.

Now I gotta start putting this beast back together. Maybe I'll wait a little bit just in case someone suggest I do something else.

I'll idly wait til I get further instructions from you guys.

Salue

PhxTRDRunner

Cool deal, I figured that would work. Now that we have that much taken care of, I would try one more thing. Try putting ground to the white/black wire at the dimmer switch, plug the dimmer back in, and see if you have lights. If not, then you probably have a bad dimmer - and if you do have lights, then the wire to the dimmer is bad. If that does not work, leave it how it is (working of course) and call it a day until you can have someone knowledgeable take a look see at it. I'm not completely sure of what your trying to describe of when they didn't work, but I think its because you would be changing the lighting loop, hard to tell without being there I guess Anyways, try that one last thing and let me know how it goes


Good job so far!

Cebby

Sounds like you are describing bypassing the dimmer here, ie. the dimmer is bad. Not sure how they lit up with your first scenario - I didn't understand the explanation...:confused:

Way to go Salue! Great diagnosis Ralph - I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you've been under a dash once or twice before...

Salue - Have a brew, you are almost there!!

Salue

Okay,
I tried plugging the dimmer switch back in and then I connected a wire to the white w/black wire(-) of the dimmer switch and ground that to the body, but no light....So from that rationale, is the dimmer bad? Cebby, yeah after reading my post I was confusing myself:confused: . What I did earlier was take a wire and connect to the neg. wire from the dimmer switch and then connected the other end to the neg. of the cig lighter bulb. When I did that, I got light. That's why I didn't understand why I didn't get light when I just ground the neg. of the dimmer switch straight to the body(w/o connecting to the neg. of the cig lighter bulb)..Did that make sense?

Right now, the dash is all back together and I have a temporary ground from the cig lighter to a part on the chassis to have lights. Is that going to mess anything up(blow a fuse?)? It might be more permanent than temporary if it's not going to mess anything up since I called Toyota and found out the dimmer switch costs $110. I'll check around at the junkyard. I'm so glad I have light now.

Thanks again everybody. You don't know how good it feels not to have to bring it into the devil, I mean dealership.

Salue

Yes, it's about that time.

Cebby

The dimmer has a 12V in (solid green), the ground from all of the dimmed stuff (white with green stripe), and the body ground (white with black stripe). With the dimmer unplugged, did you try connecting the white with green stripe to the white with black stripe? This effectively skips the dimmer in the circuit. This would undoubtedly be the safest short or long term fix. (if it solved the problem that is...) In all the things you tried, you might have tried that already, but that would rule out the dimmer as being bad.

PhxTRDRunner

Ya, you should have no problems running it that way, as it is still protected by the dimmer/dash light fuse. You could put a fuse inline on that ground wire you jumped for complete piece of mind, but I think you'll be fine.

-If it was me, I'd run it how you have it now - it works and its cheap! Not to mention, I RARELY change the brightness of my dash....


good job ~ glad I could help

Salue

Cebby,
I never tried hooking the white w/black wire to the white w/green wire on the dimmer. I didn't realize the green striped wire was a ground for the dimmed lights. Oh well. I'm glad it's done with for now....Except, in the midst of putting all the stuff back together, I forgot to plug the antenna back into the cd player :pat: . I'll fix that when my girlfriend starts complaining about not having tunes(since it's her daily driver). On another note, I noticed in you sig that you have an alarm with remote start. Did you install it yourself? My girlfriend wants to get that and I'm kind of researching which alarm and remote start to get for her.

Ralph,
I noticed that you've got an Eclipse gsx with some stuff...You got any pics of that? I drive a '96 Nissan 240sx and am into the sport compact scene, just can't afford to do much to it yet. I would love to turbo it or do an sr20det swap. Only in my dreams for now.

Thanks again fella's.

Salue

PhxTRDRunner

Awesome Salue

~btw- I actually install alarms/remote starts/stereo's by trade...I get cost on DEI stuff (I.E. Hornet, Viper) if you are in need of product or advice on that, I can definately help you out. I think I did somewhere around 300 alarms last year alone...and I've been doing it 8+ years now


..and the Eclipse...I'll post some pics tomorrow for you, it was my highschool "cool" car, now it is turning into a drag car

- she moves

Salue

I would definately love some advice on which alarm setup to get. Email me or PM me on which one's you suggest would be a good choice for the 4runner. I'm looking forward to seeing some pics of that Eclipse.

Salue