well i had my radio installed over a year ago and have had a humming.. i took it to a local stereo shop and the said i had an unwanted ground. That was only the beginning... it started by poping the 10amp tail fuse. it just happend to be where i tapped into for the foglight mod, i got rid of the mod and replaced the fuse. 2 days later SMOKE!! from under the dash a white cloud billows out. I blew the tail fuse again, i remove the faceplate and the radio to find the culprit, it was the dimmer wire. long story short heres the damage,






the dimmer wire has shorted out to the accesory wire and to the ground in multiple spots. all of this caused by one wire..

Ps if anyone feels my pain and is local and would like to help please let me know

 

that stinks

 

so you used the dimmer wire to power some fog?

btw, ive seen worst, 10wires had to be traced back and rewired. youre lucky

 

no i used the orange dimmer wire to dim the aftermarket radio.. that is all.
so far i have only found 4 wire that i need to replace.. but pulling the dash was a Bia@#$

 

Ouch, that looks like a wiring nightmare.

Troy

 

Ohhh man.........

 

Sorry to hear that... I think your problem lies elsewhere though. The dimmer circuit has nothing to do with your tail light fuse blowing. I think your problen was with how you did your foglight mod.

One question. How do you have your stereo grounded? Toyota's are notorious for having dead ground wires on the factory stereo harness. If you had no ground, your radio would then pull from the path of least resistance which is usually your dimmer/illumination wire or antenna.

 

have you looked at a schematic?? the dimmer wire directly ties into the tail lights and from there goes to to the illumination circuit that is how your dash lights come on when you turn on your lights (not to mention i have physically traced the wire to said circuits)... as far as the ground i will ground to the frame..

 

Good luck with your problem.

 

I have the dash harness from a '96, it might be the same. It looks like you already have your dash completely apart, so if you want to replace the wohle thing I have you that should work. I can check at the dealer if you PM me with the options your rig has.

 

That sucks man. It's not to bad though. I have a 87 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z that the previous owners kids stuck a penny in the cigarette lighter hole and melted a bunch of wires. There is probably about 20-30 wires that need to have at least 6" replaced, probably more.

 

***update** today my truck is still siting at the dealership. i took it on March 16th. Apparently there is not a single dash harness in the US, so i am waiting for the Japan Toyota to build a harness and ship it. If what Toyota (US) told me is true (the have already bumped the date by 2 weeks) the harness should ship from Japan on the 25th of this month and should be received by the dealership on the 7th of May. The sad part is that the tech said that if he can get the harness by 11am he can have my vehicle put back together with a guarantee by 5pm the same day.. on a good note to Toyotas quality, i was unable to find a 3rd gen 4runner in a junkyard in 14 states to include Utah, Texas, Colorado, and Louisiana..

 

Wiring nightmare......looks fun

 

ahh wiring i remember when my stereo kept poping the fuse, doesn't anymore but now the system is charging at 16 volts

 

bummer, keep at it, you'll eventually get-r-done.

 

the orange wire is not friendly, that's for sure. i recently installed an aftermarket jvc cd player in the company work truck (ford), connected the orange wire to the dimmer wire and......

A friggin' MESS! tail light fuse blew, and, obviously, the radio fuse blew. happened at night to the OTHER delivery crew, so they were pulled over on the freeway at night, without tail lights in the biggest downpour in awhile. to make it even better, no fuses were marked (nothing on the fuse box cap-well, just numbers) to match to the diagram in the owner's manual...ha, you think a work truck has an owner's manual...NO!

long story short, the orange wire completely screwed over the other guys, and it was my inexperience that put them there concerning the orange wire. don't use it! cut it off the harness, burn it, and drink a beer for your good deed!

that was therapeutic, to say the least!

 

Your problem is due to you hooking up the dimmer for the radio to the dimmer switch. Unlike most cars, Toyota and other Japanese vehicles dim the opposite way. Most cars use the dimmer on the ground side, Toyota uses the positive side. What I mean is the dimmer is a rheostat or a variable resistor. Toyota varies the positive side and not the ground side like most cars. Your aftermarket stereo works the opposite way. You were appling voltage to a ground. I would be amazed if your stereo survives.

James

 

JamesD got it right!

Toyota swiches many devices on the GROUND side, not the POSITIVE side...

Actually - given how electricity works, the Toyota method is IMHO BETTER, BUT its awfully confusing to neophytes as its not the way things traditionally work.

 

i agree with jamesd. so the orange wire has been removed from my stereo wiring adapter to prevent future problems..

 

Actually the opposite is true. The dimmer rheostat is on the ground side of the dimming lights, so they are all floating. Most other vehicles have the dimmer on the power side with all the lights tied to ground. Problem is most aftermarket things, like radios and gauges, have the backlights tied to ground with a single ligth power wire. Hook that to the dimmer ground and you are basically sorting out the dimmer with the backlight.