Yea personally I'd agree I prefer the chrome look. The base line older trucks did come with black plastic grills sometimes, it isn't 100% out of place, it just kind of downgrades it's looks based on how toyota has done it in the past.

If you like it, keep it that way, it is yours after all down let us influence your wants. I know some people really love black everywhere on their trucks (rims, grills, mirrors, smoked lights), and the whole machine just turns into a black blob with no real visible styling, I'm not a fan of that, but others are.

Side note... it appears you're missing your front blinkers? The lights next to your head lights are just marker lights unless they were converted or something.

 

didnt know those were side markers, will pickup blinkers at picknpull on my next trip, or convert. Thanks

I think i would have considered keeping chrome if the rig was a different color i think. Gold and chrome.. naht reawly (to me)

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Ok back on my harness topic. I picked one up the other day and since accessing above the tank is a PIA my plan was to peice together the burnt parts from the newer harness. Today i opened the little access under the backseat and see a red wire tapped onto the harness, the wire goes all the way to my engine bay and hacked in the diagnose box????? Disconnecting that wire seems to shut down the fuel pump, engine doesnt start. Does power to fuel pump come from that harness as well?

This is how the red wire is tapped on the harness above tank.
Tapped on the the diagnose box

 

That's an odd spot to tie into, I'd expect it to be plugged in B+. Assuming the wire is good between the ecu, COR (fuel relay), and the pump, common problem is the mass air flow meter. The bypass "test" method is to jump B+ to FP and check if the fuel pump kicks on. Hate to say it, but might be best to go though and replace the whole harness, yes it's a pain, but just the burnt spots might not be the only bad spots of the harness, other spots could have high resistance, corrosion etc that could cause problems down the road and be hard to diag. That's what I'd do at least in your situation and I'm typically into fixing things the cheap way since I don't really resell vehicles, generally they get parted / scrapped when I'm done with them. It appears to be a wiring nightmare / hack job.

 

The FP connector on the diagnostic box is SUPPOSED to be connected directly to the fuel pump, so somewhere in the past someone realized there was a problem in the harness and did an "I'll fix it correctly later" repair.

You would NOT want to connect that wire (from the fuel pump) to B+. Instead, the COR connects B+ to FP, and the COR is closed first when the key goes to STArt, then is held closed by the VAF once the engine starts sucking air. If you connected the fuel pump to B+, the fuel pump would run all the time with key-on. (Is that bad? If you get in an accident that breaks a fuel line, do you want the fuel pump to keep running while you're trying to struggle out the window?)

The bad news is the wire to the pump was broken at one time. The good news is that the replacement wire, while installed poorly, was at least connected to the right place.

 

thanks for the valuable info. I ll put this repair on the backburner since it works and isnt dangerous and will work on my front cv axles next instead (and who knows what else I ll find while there), both boots are torn

Thanks again

 

Well, since you have my attention:

1) You'll need to remove the cv axles ("half-shafts"). What the manual doesn't tell you is that the suspension MUST be compressed as though the truck is sitting on the wheels. If you just jack up the truck and let the wheels dangle, the angle is wrong and the half-shafts will NOT come out. I put a trolley jack under the wheel, jack it up until the load on the near jack stand is just coming off, and the half-shafts come right out. (Some have reported needing to jack up the opposite corner to get a little more suspension compression on the front wheel ... you get the idea.)

2) You can buy just the boots, but price out a rebuilt half-shaft. You'll end up buying the inner and outer boots (the outer boot fails, but it comes off the inner side), and the price for just the two boots is very close to the price of a professionally rebuilt half-shaft. Replacing the boots is a messy, fiddly job that I'm happy to let someone else do.

 

by "right out" you mean I don't have to remove shocks and who knows what else?

 

When I was on that area helping my cousin install a lift kit we ended up unbolting the 4 bolts that holds on the lower ball join. We didn't pull the CV axles, but there was tons of room for it (on wheel side atleast). This was on a 3rd gen 4runner, so yours might be different (he had struts instead of shocks).

 

You might have to remove the stabilizer bar (one bolt). You don't have to remove the shocks, and you definitely don't have to remove the ball joints.

What you might read is someone who got so frustrated trying to get the half-shaft out, that he took a sledge hammer and pounded out the studs in the differential flange. Then, he reports that "he meant to do that" because "it makes it much easier to replace in the field."

Each to his own.

 

thats exactly how it went after compressing the suspension to get the right angle, like you said. Easy peasy. Thank you sir

 

Is that junction box totally fried or did someone go berserk with dielectric grease?