What's up guys. I tried this mod last night and I need a couple of questions answered. I went to Jalabar's site and followed the writeup by Chuck Konarske for the 2000+ model 4Runners. I cut the green/black wire coming into the wiring harness for the DRLs (underneath the dash at the driver's right shin) and ran the green/black wire coming from the dash to ground and taped up the other end at the harness. Problem is, the fogs still go off when I turn the high beams on. After reading Jalabar's site, it seemed to me like all I had to do was to take this wire to ground and I did not have to pull the relay, bend the prong, and put in the jumper. Anyone else do this mod on a 2000+ that can help me out? Later.

Matt

 

lsumatt, did you ever get this worked out.

also, could you post a pic of that green and black wire. i looked under there, i can't seem to find it.

 

That's because in foggy conditions it's not wise to have high beams on.

 

Calrockx,
It's pouring down rain right now but as soon as it stops I'll try to get a pic for you. I'll take one under the dash and one in the fuse box under the hood.

Matt

 

Keggo is 100% correct. You may want to think twice about hooking fog lights to your high beams. The worse thing you can do in fog is turn on your high beams.
Hooked mine up with a seperate switch and will they will turn off when I turn off my truck. That way I can turn them off and on at my descrition or as the need arises,Mike

 

On my 2000. I just bent one of the prongs of the fog light relay. With that Bent prong i soldered a wire which got tapped into the tail light fuse in the fuse box good luck!

 

I bought the stock fogs for my '99 (well, Hella after-markets, which are supposed to be the same) and my mechanic is putting them in today. He told me that as long as he connects the wires to the parking lights, I will be able to keep the fogs on even if I go to highbeams. Doing this will also allow the fogs to turn off when I turn all the lights off.

Don't know much about mechanic stuff or wiring but I'm assuming the posts above talk about installing a separate switch to keep the fogs on.

 

I have mine wired the same way. Fogs can be on independent of the headlights. I do periodically run w/ fogs and high beams on, only off-road on on remote backroads an in non-fog situations. Reason for this setup is that the high beams throw lots of light far down the road, but leave a somewhat poorly lit area up close and to either side of the vehicle. So the fogs help fill in this gap in light coverage. I set my low beams to point down fairly sharp (to avoid blinding other driver's with my lifted truck) and with the sharp cutoff of the Hella headlights, there is little light thrown forward with the lows on. So I like to use the high+fog mode on very dark backroads with lots of winding turns. Probably use that mode once every year or two, but it is nice to have. But 99.9% of the time, it is low beams+fogs in bad weather.

I suppose I could add some additional lights to fill the area that the fog lights do, but what's the point when they work fine. I don't want to have a dozen lights hanging off the front of my truck, 2 headlights and 2 fog lights are plenty. And when I do use high+fogs, I only do so when no other traffic is around, on remote backroads or off-road.

 

i don't intend to make it so the fogs only come on with highs. i just want the fogs to be able to go on whenever i choose. for the reasons 4crawler listed above.

 

Fogs went in today but wiring them to the parking lights did not work. It appears that there's not enough amperage in the parking lights to keep the fogs going. Every time he hooked them up, a fuse would blow.

He's surprised how complex Toyota's are because he says that he does this all the time with Hondas.

 

This guy is a mechanic? Seriously, how hard is it to install a set of auxiliary lights that operate off a dedicated switch?

Andreas

 

You want the power for the fog light relay coil to come from the parking light circuit. You still want the power for the fog lights themselves to come from wherever they originally did. So assuming a typical Bosch type relay, the 30 terminal still gets power from it's original source (i.e. don't touch that wire) but the 85 (or 86) terminal gets power from the parking lights (or other switched light circuit). If you are blowing fuses, then it is likely the 30 terminal wire was changed, not the 85 terminal wire.

 

Probably just a rant, but I STILL can't believe the number of idiots out there that INSIST on running their fog lights 24/7. I find that doubling the number of lights coming at you is distracting and a nuisance. Run 'em when you need them. If conditions are such that I need my fogs, I'll also have my headlights down to DRL levels to reduce the reflective glare from the "soup:...

Just my 2 cents...

 

Wasn't trying to do it off a dedicated switch. Was trying to keep it stock so that fogs were on all the time.

I'm sure it sounds stupid to most but I live in L.A. and don't have much fog. I figured keeping the fogs on "looks cool." I'm sure it sounds gay but I guess that's just me. Why else would I pay $150 for fogs so small except for the looks.

 

I like having the mod done so I can use the fogs with just the parking lights during dusk or dawn when the headlamps are too much and it does look "cool" too.