I decided to install TRD elockers front and rear with 4.56 gearing in my 1985 4Runner. Although there are many good ways to wire and control the elockers, I wanted to use an 80 switch and ECU as I thought that would be really cool. Also, I own a 1997 FZJ80 with elockers and really liked the switch and instrument cluster lights that are used.

Here are the parts that I bought/acquired:

41110-3D010 - TRD elocker, 4.56 ratio - quantity 2
42181-60050 - elocker gasket - quantity 2
90116-08330 - elocker long studs - quantity 4
82127-35100 - elocker harness - quantity 2

FZJ80 elocker ECU (mine was from a 1997)
FZJ80 elocker ECU switch (either '96 or '97)
Pigtails with about 12" of wiring for the ECU and swtich - very important!!

30' of 6 conductor, 14 AWG, trailer cord
2 elocker motor guards from Marlin Crawler
1 tube of Toyota red FIPG
2 red LED's from 12Voltguy

I'm not going to go into all of the mechanical part of the installation as that is well documented on several different websites. My great appreciation to all those pioneers that figured out and documented the mechanical side of the installation.

I did rebuild both axles while they were apart and I also completely stripped (wire cup on side grinder), steam cleaned, and painted both axles with POR15 and their Chassis Black topcoat. Stripping and painting the axles took the most time but it was well worth it while everything was apart.

The mechanical part of the installation was fairly easy if you follow the write-ups. I did have trouble installing the front diff as there was not enough room for the rearmost U-bolt as the clearance between the Elocker and the spring perch was too tight. I wound up having the U-bolt shaved on one side by 1/8". I don't think it will be an issue as it was one of the large, grade 8, U-bolts that was supplied with my OME lift kit. You also need to replace the top elocker sensor bolt with a tapered-head screw so that the top can be countersunk. I will show a pic or two of that in a moment.

Here are some pics of the parts:

 

Here are some installed photos before we go on to the wiring...

The last photo shows the front elocker installed on the axle with the countersunk bolt and a good view of the spring perch.

 

I used the following FZJ80 elocker ECU wiring diagrams to help with the wiring. I used an ECU from a 1997 FZJ80. I did discover during this odyssey that the wire colors on the ECU's changed at some point. I know that some of the colors on the 1993 and 1994 models were different and that the 1996 and 1997 years were the same. I'm not sure about 1995 (but would guess that it's the same as 1997).

You need to use these wiring schematics because the TRD elocker wire colors are different from the Landcruiser elocker wire colors (on like for like service).

The spreadsheet shows the cross-wiring between the two.

 

If you look at the spreadsheet (last photo above), I was basically trying to decipher the 16 pins (16 wires) on the 80 elocker ECU, the two 8 pin connectors on the TRD elockers (7 wires), the switch and two LED's.

Starting with the Rear elocker, I cut the 8 pin connector off the wiring harness and wired the 7 wires (one pin isn't used) to the 6 conductor trailer wire as shown. The trailer wire colors were arbitrarily assigned. Your wire may have different colors.

As an example, you can see that the Yellow-Blue (yellow with a blue stripe) was connected to the brown wire on the trailer wire. You will notice that there are two White-B (white with a black stripe) out of the 7 elocker wires. These were wired together to the black trailer wire.

I used special butt connectors for all of these connections that you crimp and then heat. They have heat shrink tubing and a solder pellet integral to the connector. I then put two layers of heavy wall, adhesive lined, heat shrink tubing over the outside of everything. I know that this was a bit obsessive but $50 in connectors seemed like small change at the time.

I then did the same for the front elocker and both trailer cords were then pulled to the elocker ECU.

I chose to mount the elocker ECU just below the fuse panel located in the driver's side kick panel. If you have cruise control then you will probably not have room to mount your panel there. In my 4Runner, there was an aftermarket cruise control ECU in this location which I removed. You can see the pigtail and connector for the cruise control hanging down in one of the photos.

I routed the rear trailer cord up and over the gas tank and then followed the brake lines up into the engine compartment on the passenger side. I then went into the passenger side, behind the AC vents through an existing grommet (see photo). The wires went up, along the top of the AC ducting, over (but behind) the instrument cluster and down into the driver's side kick panel. I had to take apart my dash to do this but I was taking it apart anyway as I was installing a new (used) dash pad.

The front elocker trailer cord basically went straight up and to the right where it also went through this grommet and followed the same path. It was a tight fit through the grommet as this trailer cord OD is almost 1/2" but I got it to go. A bit of warning, this routing (front and rear) took quite a bit of wire and I must have used at least 25' of the 6 conductor trailer cord in the end.

 

I mounted the switch and LED's more or less where the switch is mounted on my 80:

 

Now I could at this point walk through every wiring connection with an explanation but you should be able to figure it out if you print out the two FZJ80 wiring diagram pages and the table that I created.

A few notes however. I pulled power from the engine compartment using 14 AWG protected by a 20A fuse which goes through a 30A Bosch relay before going to the elocker ECU. The relay is also located in the kick panel above the ECU and the solenoid side is fed from ignition-on power out of the fuse panel located in the kick panel. That way there is no power going to the elocker ECU until the ignition is turned on.

There are several ground wires listed (5 in fact). I bundled them together and connected one wire to a body ground in the kick panel.

I will attach one last photo of the wiring just before I tested the elockers and before I heated all of the connections to shrink the heatshrink tubing and solder. I don't have a photo with the kick panel reinstalled but all of this wiring easily tucked out of the way and is not hindering access to the fuse panel.

What amazed me is that it absolutely worked perfectly and it worked on the first try.

The lockers behave exactly like the lockers on my 80. When you turn the switch the LED (or LEDs if you turn the switch to front and rear) start to blink and then go solid when the locker locks. In other words, the LEDs function exactly like the instrument panel indicators on my 80.

I haven't really field tested them yet as I was doing too much other work on the 4Runner while in the US (and we are now back in England). I did drive the 4Runner quite a bit while we were home and the 4.56 gearing is really nice. I can maintain 80 miles per hour on the interstate (as long as it's flat!) and the speedometer seems to be more or less correct with the 31" BFG tires.

If you want lockers and don't mind spending the money, this is one slick way to do it. I think I paid $125 for the switch, ECU and pigtails (from 2 different sources) and I thought that was pretty good value for what I got.

Now of course (as I said in the first post), there are many great ways to wire these elockers. 12VoltGuy makes a harness, Inchworm sells one, and there are several relay assemblies documented on the web.

I am quite happy with the way that I went. Hope this helps someone in the future that decides to go this route.

 

Nice tech, even if you do root for the wrong team.

 

You just live in the wrong town!

 

Nice install. Is that a new locker? The matchmarks make it look like possibly a rebuild.

 

Yes. Both elockers were brand new with a 1 year warranty. The gears always have to be set, even when they come from the "factory", thus the match marks.

Anyone regearing (up to 4.56) and adding a locker should consider this route. Although the retail price is over $1200, I got the lockers for less than $900 from a dealer who special ordered them for me (they are readily available). If you add up gears, install kits, lockers and labor, that's not a bad deal in comparison.