Rheostat / Dimmer frustrations hey 4Crawler or XXX
09-13-2011, 07:11 PM
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Rheostat / Dimmer frustrations hey 4Crawler or XXX
'87 4Runner auto trans. 4x4
First the wires:
*Red / black stripe and blue spots (rings) around the wire about every inch
*Solid green wire with red rings every inch around wire
*White / black stripe with red rings every inch around wire
When I bought the Runner it had a 4 plug rheostat, everything worked great. Well I took apart the dash parts to restore them and broke the rheostat.
Now my parking lights stay on (only when the ignition is on). And I can't figure out how to wire a new (used) rheostat. I have 3 different rheostats on hand, an analog, and 2 different digital ones. 1 with a 3 prong plug and another digital 4 prong plug.
Witch one do I use and how should wire it up?
BTW no trailer hook up.
4Crawler any in site ?
First the wires:
*Red / black stripe and blue spots (rings) around the wire about every inch
*Solid green wire with red rings every inch around wire
*White / black stripe with red rings every inch around wire
When I bought the Runner it had a 4 plug rheostat, everything worked great. Well I took apart the dash parts to restore them and broke the rheostat.
Now my parking lights stay on (only when the ignition is on). And I can't figure out how to wire a new (used) rheostat. I have 3 different rheostats on hand, an analog, and 2 different digital ones. 1 with a 3 prong plug and another digital 4 prong plug.
Witch one do I use and how should wire it up?
BTW no trailer hook up.
4Crawler any in site ?
09-14-2011, 06:35 AM
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My manual is for an '94 (you can find a '93 here http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-b.../4lighting.pdf), so my advice won't be too helpful.
The good news is that the panel rheostat is for dimming the panel lights; it has nothing to do with parking lights. You have something broken elsewhere.
A "digital" rheostat is just a quadrature encoder (two switches) unless it has a bunch of ICs connected to it. It won't do you any good.
The panel rheostat may be either 2 or 3 lead; in '94 it depended on a/t or manual. My manual gives a different set of colors than you describe, but I'm going to guess one is connected to ground, one to 12v (may be solid green), and one to the ground-side of the panel lights. You don't want to ground the 12v lead (that will blow the taillight fuse), but if you ground it through a 250 ohm resistor that won't hurt (it will dissipate about 1/2 watt, so it will get hot quickly). Grounding the lights lead through that resistor will dimly light the panel lights, and you'll have your leads.
I don't know the resistance of the factory rheostat (did you save any parts of what you broke?), but you can't just slap anything in there. A rheostat from a radio, for instance, wouldn't work at all.
Good luck!
The good news is that the panel rheostat is for dimming the panel lights; it has nothing to do with parking lights. You have something broken elsewhere.
A "digital" rheostat is just a quadrature encoder (two switches) unless it has a bunch of ICs connected to it. It won't do you any good.
The panel rheostat may be either 2 or 3 lead; in '94 it depended on a/t or manual. My manual gives a different set of colors than you describe, but I'm going to guess one is connected to ground, one to 12v (may be solid green), and one to the ground-side of the panel lights. You don't want to ground the 12v lead (that will blow the taillight fuse), but if you ground it through a 250 ohm resistor that won't hurt (it will dissipate about 1/2 watt, so it will get hot quickly). Grounding the lights lead through that resistor will dimly light the panel lights, and you'll have your leads.
I don't know the resistance of the factory rheostat (did you save any parts of what you broke?), but you can't just slap anything in there. A rheostat from a radio, for instance, wouldn't work at all.
Good luck!
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