toyotasaurus

For a 1987 4runner
How do I bypass the button for the rear window lock? There are four wires in the connector and I'm not electrically intelligent to figure out how to pull this off. Me + Metal = good, Me + Electrical = BAD.....
Here is the connector that the switch plugs into....


One of these days I should try to understand electrical a little better, but it's just something that's always frustrated me.

toyotasaurus

Is this that stupid of a question? I'm sure people have done this when moving the switches to the dash...... Guessing this one may be a trial and error sort of thing

PismoJoe

My switch didn't work which caused the back window to not work, so I went to the junkyard and got a new window lock switch for $5

Never seen anyone bypass this before, maybe try cleaning out the connections inside the switch if yours is bad.

toyotasaurus

It actually works just fine, I just want to get rid of it since I'm building a new console and trying to consolidate things. It seems pretty unnecessary to me but perhaps I'll just keep it.

PismoJoe

Oh Gotcha, Well then why don't you just plug it in and hide it under your new console? Pretty pointless for me too since I would never want to lock my back window

toyotasaurus

Yeah, I may just do that. Just figured I'd clean things up a bit while I was doing stuff. The original plan was to relocate the switches up to the two spots above the radio, hence the wanting to remove the Lock switch, but I'd have to extend the wires and I'm just not really wanting to go to that much effort, so I'll just leave them relatively where they're at and build a new console that'll work with my dual cases.

B4Runner

It's not a stupid question. I did this...before I totally hacked up my wire harness. Let me go see if I can find my switch and figure it out for you.

B4Runner

I can't find my switch, but I'll walk you through what I did to figure it out, and it worked.

Carefully open the switch. I think I used two butter knives, one on each side. When you have the switch open, you will see the connections. IIRC, there are 2 wires in the middle (centered below the button) and 2 on the outside. It's the 2 wires in the middle that you want to tap together.

The reason you have to open up the switch is to discover which 2 wires are the magical ones. Then, make sure you find the corresponding wires on the vehicle end of the harness and tap them together.

WAIT. I have a pic in my build-thread, let me go find it.

B4Runner

THE BLUES! ITS THE BLUES!!!

Tap the 2 blue wires together. I'll post a pic in just a sec.

B4Runner

B4Runner

And if that little group of wires are still too much of an obstruction, cut the 2 blues short, solder them, and just cut down the red and green.

toyotasaurus

Thanks B4! That's most helpful! I figured those two went together I just wasn't quite sure what to do with the others

B4Runner

Haha, no problem!

And now that you have probably gone out and tapped those 2 wires together, let me give you a new suggestion.

Don't bother with them. Go find about 60' of wire, as small of a gauge as the stock wires, or in my case, 12, because it's all I had. And all this is to make your window switch perma-hot. So incase you walk out one day to get something out of the back and you forgot your keys on you, you don't have to go back for your keys.

If that interests you, I'll tell you every wire you need to work with and where to locate them.

Ron Helmuth

sorry I am out of my league here but just wanted to throw this out there.

Isn't part of this switchgear a safety feature engineered in to keep you from extending the window when the tailgate is down? Then the glass is not exposed to potential damage.

Perhaps I am not understanding this completely-but with electrical once you start to mess with it you introduce a whole host of un-necessary complications for little gain.

just my 2 cents...

camo31_10.50

i thought you actually COULD NOT roll up the window with the tailgate down?

like no matter what it will not roll up.

B4Runner

Yes, you can roll up the window with the tailgate down. (Actually, you are more of rolling it out than up. Haha.) But in order to do this, you must latch the left latch into the closed position, making the truck think the tailgate is closed. I, on my side, have not been stupid enough as to roll the window "up" while the tailgate is down as it hung down while about half way out and I noticed it chugged slightly as I rolled it back up for the first time after closing the tailgate (with the window down, of coarse. But then, it rolled up and down fine again after that.)

I'm not sure what you mean by switch gear? Anyways, from my experience, I've had no problem. What we are talking about is by passing the rear window lock button. It's the same as if you press the window lock button in your family car so your kids can't mess with the window. All we are doing here is making it so that we can still operate the rear window without the switch being there. Tapping those two wires together makes the truck think the switch is there and in unlock mode. That's all; no harm. If you were referring to my idea of making the window switch hot, it basically makes the console switch the exact same thing as the tailgate switch. The only difference is that you need a key to operate the tailgate switch and only your finger for the console switch. Otherwise, they are the exact same thing. As for a safety feature to not roll the window out of the tailgate, that's safety switch is associated with the left latch of the tailgate. If you open the tailgate, the latch is in the open position, and the safety feature is at work, hence why you can't operate the window while the tailgate is down. Now, if someone were stupid enough to open the tailgate, latch the latch, and try to roll up the window, they are just dumb. I can't say whether I know if the window would actually roll out of the tailgate, but I can give to reasons why it wouldn't. One, why in the world would a car company make a window extent or retract farther than necessary. (Think of a convertible car that does not have a top frame for the windowm such as a soft-top Mustang. The window has no track like the tailgate window does, which is provided by the shell, yet the window knows where to stop. And two, the window is attached to an X-shapped track that "compresses" as the window is rolled down and then extended up when the window is rolled up. It isn't build to leave the 1 cm wide slit intended for only the window to fit through. The only reason I could image a reason for the window to be able to extend out of the tailgate is for removal of the glass. But I think there is another, real way of removal, that not being the way. I could be wrong, but I don't believe so in this case.

I hope I answered your guys' questions.

Chris Craist

Hello B4runner and thank you for your tailgate switch bypass hint.

Charchee

I believe the window lock is there to keep you from accidentally raising the rear window while you have the top off. With nothing to hold the sides of the window, I would imagine that the wind at highway speed could eject the window into the road. My lock switch was ruined by, I'm guessing, several spilled drinks over the years. From Toyota, that switch is like $90 if I remember right. I did the bypass on mine and put a generic, marine up down momentary switch to replace my bad window up down switch. It worked out just fine. I have some extra rocker switches so then next time I pull the console, I think I'm going to put one in there between the blue wires. I pull the top off mine a lot so it would be nice to have that switch working and matching switches would clean up the look of the switch panel.

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

for what it is worth all the 4Runners with the Tops you could remove had a safety switch that with the Top off the window circuit opens.

Charchee

My window will go up with the top off. I did some reading to figure out how that safety switch worked and it said that one of the bolts is different and when it is in all the way it closes the circuit. All of my bolts are the same so I guess someone before me lost the magic bolt and when the window wouldn't work anymore, they wired around the safety switch. It may have even been me that did it. I know the window didn't work when I got it and I can't remember what all I did to fix it. I think I'll go back in there and fix it right. Thanks for sir.