Emergency diagnosis needed!......

Richard/Redeth005 came by today, to help wiyh my roof light etc project.....

At some point today when he came over to my side of town, his rear window stopped working and he probably wouldn't have noticed during the day because he didn't need his lights... But the dash lights went out as well. On top of that his parking lights also went out, also known as running lights. She has always had a problem with having to turn at least the running lights on in order to roll his window up or down... Considering the back window switches tied to the running light circuit because of the lights that are inside of the switch, I would think that his problem is probably that a ground or something in there finally gave way are made contact... At some point today, we got back to my house from picking up welding wire and so forth, and he could not roll the rear window down still. Before he started to have the stuff from the back I suggested trying one of my donor switches. I went and got it he plugged it in and wallah, out of nowhere for the first time has run to roll down and up without the lights on and it actually works with the key from the back as well. Something has to be going on with that circuit either in the running lights circuit or the switch itself where it ties into that running light circuit.

RAD, Toyo, anyone that could help to pinpoint this down quickly would be very appreciated. He cannot make the trip to Big Bear next weekend without running lights, that's just too far to drive on the freeway with your hazards on. Just to reiterate, the turn signals and hazard and brake lights all work... Also, the dummy lights on the dash including check engine battery and charge are all working... Nothing else. The only reason the inclinometer is working is because the type that into a separate circuit.

 

Urgh...... One problem after another. Everything going wrong all at once.
Today My front marker lights, dash lights and tail lights all went out.

Things that are working:
Headlights, cruise control, hazard lights, brake lights, turn signals, rear window, cig lighter, defroster, rear window.

Im so lost right now. I cant think of what it could be. But i did look up a bunch of into just now and so far everybody has found that the cause to this problem is a bad ground, blown fuse(WHICH I DID NOT FIND), a short, a switch, a relay, tow hitch wires causing a short... The list of problems are endless. I have some serious detective work to do tomorrow. I drove the 25 miles back home from Chefyota4x4's house last night without tail lights in the middle of the dark night. drove with my hazard lights/and headlights on.

Anyway here are a bunch of links that i found that might be helpful.
http://www.trail-gear.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8313

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/t...ot-fuse-58763/

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f120...e-time-237155/

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...-issue-230546/

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f131...roblem-179389/


Man. I hope this problem is something simple. to fix. I really wont wanna tear the entire truck down to find a short.
I'll jump on this mystery first thing in the morning tomorrow. I'm off to bed now.

 

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/show...387&styleid=51

 

Richard and Mark,
Tail light, running lights and dash lights take power from tail light fuse. Tail light fuses OK? YOu hear/feel your tail light relay come on (click) when you turn tail light switch on?
With tail light switch on, please check for 12 volts at these points:
All voltages are checked with black probe on chassis ground, unless drawn otherwise.

Then, let's go from there. Will check with you tomorrow.

It would help isolate problems if you could disconnect everything you connected to stock tail light and rear window circuit.

 

Alright guys. Check it out. Problem has been solved but still don't know what the cause was. Last night when i checked the fuse im almost certain that i didnt see a blown fuse. but When i checked it this morning i seen that the "Tail light fuse" was blown i was left puzzled i could have sworn that the fuse was still good when i looked at it last night. I installed a new blue 15a fuse there a everything worked perfectly fine. I tested out both tailgate window switches, with and without lights turned on. I checked out all the rest of the fuses and they were fine. After i got it in the dashboard, tail lights and the marker lights were all working fine. I even drove the truck and tested everything out and it was good too. I have no clue what caused it to blow.


The only thing that Mark and i can think of is that maybe some moisture from my last car wash got into my tail lights or trailer hitch wire connector I am not sure but just to be on the safe side i bought some Di-Electric Grease to stick in there not only to prevent rust but also to keep moisture out.

 

Also help as a conductant! ....( by keeping each person isolated and free of moisture that can cause arcing and so forth)

Woot! Lol.... We were tired last night, and I had already spent plenty of time on our side up under the dash of my truck, you probably just missed it. My bet is that it was moist your end at some point on your way to my house it made its way into the circuit and you hit the brakes and poof .

Still, like I've told you, I really really really hope that we can get in there and start to clean up some of that wiring for you. Its abomination what that guy did. Now you are doing everything like we've talked about with solder and heat shrink.... It will help! Trust me! But until we can get in there and begin to undo that guys spaghetti soup and busbar nonsense... I still am concerned a bit. One thing for sure is that you eventually will do a motor swap. Hopefully not sooner than later because you just had that guy rebuild your motor at such an expense... But from speaking to you I can pretty much declare that I know you're going to do the 3.4 when the time comes. That wiring could make for quite a nightmare when its time to take on the new, maybe not nightmare, but certainly bit of drama of wiring in the new stuff for the 3.4. Plus, as I mentioned today, I just don't want you to be out in the middle of nowhere at night, Wheeling, and poof, big drama!

Also as we talked about... You absolutely have to get that tail light replaced, buddy! Start looking on ebay or here for a working one from JBM 715 or something like that... I have that one, which I keep a spare, but it does need a little work to get the kink out of the reverse light wiring for the one side. Thats the only problem it had ever. Then maybe you can find a working one along the way sometime and just give me back that one. I found mine at the yard and it works perfectly, 10 bucks!

Really glad you found that and I'm very stoked that the switch worked out for you man! I wish I would've pushed you earlier to try it, but I guess it just kept slipping my mind. Congrats!

 

I also just noticed something else. The switch you had spliced and fixed to work that only works with the lights on or off etc? It works backwards. When you pressed down the window and up when you pressed up and went down. So everything in that wiring was wrong except for power was getting to it. Since it is tied to the running lights, through the tail light circuit, my guess is still that you got water in there and its some point maybe you hit the window and it blew everything out. but definitely, you should look back at that video and you will see if I am correct that your switch works backwards from the one that you got from me .

That totally makes sense now, because if you had the illumination portion wired incorrectly like the other portions are, then it would only work when you turn on the running lights. But considering you possibly had another thing within that wiring reversed, it made it so that it would not run when the lights were on. I can't remember the name of that type of switch but it is on / off / on, double throw single pole? Ray will help with that one, but you know what I'm saying. Does that make sense to you regarding the fact that I think it was wired improperly and therefore caused that issue of needing the lights to be on?

 

wonder if it had anything to do with the led turn signals you just added. maybe a bad or loose wire that grounded out.

 

And one of the blew out already....

Still, having that weird issue with the lights having to be on and so forth... Something was way off of that switch and then something else like you said maybe the signals grounding, etcetera. He had wired those from what I could see fairly well... Are then further he shrunk and wrapped them. They were working fine for a while after that, and unless he kept the socket like I did and it got wet... I'm not sure. They were definitely flashing really fast because of no resistor. But, I've heard of guys running those like that for a long time with no problems....

Hmmmm

 

if the problems happen after all the wiring work. ie lights, leds, winch, and what not. i would go and unplug all those recently added parts and see what happens. or do one at a time till the issue stops to help pin point.

 

Glad you got it working, Richard.

Re Junkyard Switch
Color code may be different from year to year. It's always best to understand internal working of the switch, and verify them by actually probing: which set of pins connect in one position, and open in another.

Light status should not affect window operation. If Mark's switch works,
chances are that stock circuit is fine. If you really must use that switch, I suggest you test individual pins as above and compare with Mark's.

Note that two of those wire supply 12V+ and Gnd to the switch light. There should be a few ohms between those 2 wires. BUT, both of those wires should have open (=infinity = OL) to the rest of the pins.

I'm guessing the junk switch happens to have contacts that are shorted when they're not supposed to be, ones and are open when they're not supposed to be. How come? Just imagine how many cups of coffee and beer had been spilt on those console switches- LOL! That's why I relocated mine. Now I have a fully-functional cup holder (I'll make it pretty later)

Re Fuse:
Sometimes it's not easy to see if fuse is busted or not. Sometimes, it may have corroded contacts so that it becomes equivalent to a very thin wire.
Theoretically, simply measuring resistance of that fuse will give you good (low) resistance. However, once you run just a certain amount of current though it it will heat up, get more resistive and prevent light (load) from working. Best way to test a fuse would be:

• Keep it installed,
• Turn on what it's supposed to power.
• Probe across the fuse like below.
• Really good fuse should have no v

oltage across it.

 

Alright guys so the problem returned. It was so wierd. I was gonna drive the truck and before turning on the truck I switched on and off the lights amd it worked. Then I turned on the truck and swapped the lights back on and.... no dash lights again. I walked outside and checked on the tail lights and marker lights and those were also out.

Soo I'm thinking unplugging the 20 &30 amp fuses from my extra fuse block that Mark and I installed for those offroad lights. And that should keep those relays off for the mean time.

I didn't have any problems at all prior to having all the offroad lights and installed.

Also I was wondering. Is ot possible the grease I put into those contacts from the pix I posted earlier might have came out conducting the other wires with eachother?

Ray I'm gonna have to test out what you recommended during the week. I want to get this problem fixwd before Saturday or else I won't be going to that offroad trip with Mark and RedWagon.

 

I really don't see how the aux fuse block 30a and 20a fuses/curcuits/relays could be causing the issue with the stop light circuit. I didn't tie them to the main chassis harness. I have to look back to see what you did to wire your turn signals, they were wired before you came over , and we simply wrapped them a little to prevent them from rubbing on the holes they went through in the bumper. ( one of those signals still works and the other one I guess it's simply blown... But you can see a tiny bit of current going through them as the LED's barely Flickr if you hold your hand over the light and look really closely)

I'm having trouble remembering which wire you chose to jump off over by the passenger side kick panel for "switched or ignition power to the lights in the switches".... I wanted to jump off the defog circuit, which is what I've done for all of mine... But, the wiring over there was so messed up and you didn't want to remove the kick panel fuse block... Which I totally understand. What where was that that we jumped off for the switched power...?

Also, are you saying you're off road lights are not working?

 

Really sorry this is happening.

Since you're not going to be using those off road lights for now, I don't see how it could hurt to unplug those fuses and just see if the problem stops. but, I would quickly dig in to the turn signal wiring, license plate wiring and swap out that busted passenger side tail light as quickly as possible. It will help you with your process of elimination and you have to do it anyway. It is quite the coincidence at least that it happened a little while after doing the off road lights. I would also try to move that circuit that is feeding your off road lights switches power for the illumination ... The switch power, over by the passenger side wherever that is that you tied..... Run it over to the defog circuit which was still working after the fuse blew(Because it's on a different circuit then the stoplight). Removing the fuses will not stop the switches from being illuminated. The switch is pole 1 a.m. When activated and probably very few milliamps just to stay illuminated red. Until you flip that switch I don't see that circuit able to draw enough to even affect the stop light circuit( because those relays are not even drawing current for themselves to the lights until the switch is activated) , which I still don't know or remember exactly which one you tied into.

I believe the reason tying off to the back of the lighter didn't work is because you can use that post but when the ring connector is placed beneath it it makes contact with the body or housing of the lighter which causes it to ground. Even then we never blew the lighter fuse..... Then we moved over 2 the wiring you fed power to the window relay with. No? I'll wait for you to respond...

 

Mark I tapped into the ignition power wire for the power windows. That power is also switched power. But u know what... now that I think about it. I don't remember where I tapped that ignition wire into.
But either way. If I was blowing whatever I tapped into wih that power windiw wire wouldnt that mean that my windows wouldn't work either whenever that fuse would blow?

Also all 4 offroad lights still work when that fuse ia blown. Sorry to make it seem like they didn't. I should have been more clear. I guess you're right I can't see how taking out those fuses would do anything for the problem since they aren't tied into any tail light wires.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------
Found a knock sensor replacement thread

this is definitely going to come in handy when i do that job.
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f128...cement-233708/
------------------------------------------------------------------

 

So I just called Penske Toyota of Downey Ca to get a quote for doing the knock sensor/wire installation and i cant belive the outrageous quote i got from them. These guys said it would be $321 for the Denso Knock sensor and wire/plug. and approx 1100 for labor. I was like WHAAAAAAA????? wow. Then the guy said i could bring the Labor down to $920 if you bring it in by this week. And i was still shocked at the cost. Cant believe how expensive it is. but it is a very time consuming and demanding job. But wow.

Well that answered that question for me. Straight and to the point lol. My mind is made up. Looks like i have a major project on my hands coming up for that darn Code 52 because i definitely cant afford 1200-1400 on replaceing those 2 pieces. -_-

 

I wish I had more time right now, and I would be over there in a heartbeat to help you. If I do get some free time and you want me to help you tear that down, I'm pretty quick at that stuff.

No need to apologize, I just wanted to be sure, & I wasn't sure at that point( as to whether the off road lights were still working and the switches) . I could see it possibly causing the problem if it is blowing a smaller fuse, but they are still working... Plus, you're not using the off road lights when that goes haywire, so it just seems unlikely to me. You wouldn't believe how many things happen to me simply by coincidence... I in no way would discourage you from looking into the off road lights as the possible source of the problem... But the only other thing we got into was the lighter which is working and never even blew the fuse. Even the arching, due to the battery ground/lights ground bolt/battery needing to be tied to the harness - situation... I can't believe it has anything to do with it because that was direct power simply to the lights which were tied to nothing at the time. Even with the relay, it's directly from your auxiliary power which is tied to nothing within the chassis... So I just doubt it but I would never say it's impossible without checking continuity and resistance of every circuit involved that comes near it. Still, I doubt it. You just have to decide where you want to start in ruling things out. I think the best place to start is the farthest place away which would be the actual unit, whichever that is (I assume the tail light), which is being powered by a fuse and a relay.

Remember, you have so many things that are Mickey Mouse in there from the previous owner... Who knows, maybe he tied in to that circuit for something and the relay is constantly under load, even when the head lights are not on . I had that problem with a COR that had corroded and was constantly arced to make contact... The car would turn off but then it wouldn't start if I tried to start it within the next 10 minutes. If I waited long enough it would cool off, then release, until the point of one day where it just completely melted down inside there and while parked in an auto parts store, lol.... It suddenly wouldn't work anymore... I replaced that relay and the problem was solved and has been for around 50,000 miles since.

I still think something is grounding out ... One way to rule out that turn signal is too unwrap it and pull it out from wherever you connected it and directly power. That may not tell you anything if the bulbs are blown out... But if its not, you may have some issue with the signals... Problem there is that I believe the turn signals and parking lights and illumination of the dash and so forth are on 2 different circuits(taillight & comb. s/w).....?

One way to quickly rule out the off road lights on that circuit that you used would be 2 remove the connection is made on the passenger side and place it on the "defog" circuit using one of those add a line fuse kits. They don't have to be for anything but temporary, but they work and I still have that one in there for 5 years now... I know people don't like them but it sure makes for a quick solution if something goes wrong and it's interrupted by its own second fuse. Especially since it is only the power switch. At around five dollars,.... I don't think it's a terrible idea. However, I don't even know that the circuit you tieing to is a bad idea in the first place... You need to definitively state which ignition circuit that is that you're using to feed I believe your power windows?( which you used to power the ignition source to the switches for your offroad lights)

This is all some weird stuff at times... But pretty straightforward. I'll give you an example. If you remove your buzzer for the door,... The dome light will no longer work on the door setting. You interrupted that completed circuit. Plug the buzzer back in with the buzzer mechanism bent backwards so that it just doesn't bother anymore... The door section of the dome light works again. 2. Get corrosion enough or break the contact of the top of detection switch in the cargo area or the door locked detection switch... Suddenly, rear window, no matter what you do, will no longer operate. You interrupted the ground for that circuit and it is no longer completed and cannot operate it.

Taillight? .... If that got wet and grounded, I guess it could permanently compromise a contact back there or wire. The reverse light in mine that I had to smack to come on finally gave up the ghost, and looking at it, you would never know there was a problem... The only real problem with it is that the wire to the reverse light right by the light housing must have become severed or compromised in some way. I bet you if I replace all those wires one of the time right to the contacts and clean the contacts and clean inside the bayonet sockets... It will work again. But having a fuse blow? That is likely a zap of current back to that fuse block, in the driver side kick panel, .....at least I would guess it would be. But from where?

 

Alright guys on to the electrical detective work!
Just a quick summary of the video. i found out what the horrible wiring job the previous owner did leads to. It all goes to the after market power locks and the alarm system which are both tied in with eachother. Aside from that i discovered 2 areas where bare wire is exposed and that bare wire runs off ignition power.
I took the multimeter and tested the power window ignition power, the bare wires to the P.O's crappy wire job and the 15amp tail light fuse and found that they are all connected. And that would explain why the 15amp fuse would blow. It is very possible that the fuse would blow whenever the bare metal would touch the metal floor or rub against another wire a little. All it takes is a little and zap goes the fuse.

Anyway watch the video to see the horrible wiring disaster. and see for yourself the multimeter results.

-Also After making this video, i made a trip to Home Depot and bought some high grade heavy duty electrical tape and some regular electrical tape too with some liquid glue.
-Then drove to Harbor Freight and bought a crimping tool, 1/4" & 11/64 heat shrink, heat shrink ring terminals( i think thats what they're called) in 10-12 & 14-16 and 16-22 gauge.
-Then drove to PepBoys Auto Parts and bought some 12 gauge red wire/ a 12v outlet to i can always have a constant hot running to the cab of the truck without ever needing the key turned on. I would like this for offroad trips so i can charge my phone and camera. I also went ahead and bought the Harbor freight D-ring hitch receiver for towing. this way i could get pulled out of nasty parts for this weekends offroad trip if i get stuck.

All this came out to a total of $54.14


I tested out the hitch and Uhhhh ohhhhh looks like it isn't gonna fit due to the winch aluminum fairlead. Gonna have to shave from of flat outer square off the hitch to be able to clear that fairlead.

 

Ohhhhh yeahhhhhh,..... tonight only, " attack of the pile of electrical spaghetti soup", joined by a double feature follow up of the proverbial , "I'm going to get you short circuit sucka!"-haul of electrical goodies! Hehe. ..

" I think this might be my problem... The two bare wires right up against the floorboard and possibly throwing spark off each other"......MAYBE??? Hahaha. ... I knew that mess had to be the source of some of your problems... I still think the wiring to the rear window switch was crossed or failed somehow, inside, which is why it went up when you press down and down when you press up... And if 2 wires were crossed, one of them being for the illumination of the switch, which is tied directly to the tail light circuit... That would explain why you would have to have at least the parking lights on in order to roll it either down or up( I can't remember off the top of my head which one it was)....
Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!... this could lead to several things getting tidied up ... And that's a good thing!

Have you checked the other turn signal? If you did does the way I suggested and kept your original connectors intact, then you could simply pull back to heat shrink and unplug it, then Connect that signal directly to the battery to test it... If that lights up,... Time to start with A test of continuity at the connector on the harness side. Then work your way back and see if it will draw something on your new bumper, etc. If you already explained that that is fixed, I apologize. I thought I read everything but I might have missed it.

Great news, buddy! Not bad on the detective work there ....