Dateline – 06/11 and 06/12, 2016 – I got all but the fenders
back from the paint shop this week and was planning on having a panel hanging
party on Saturday, but yours truly forgot to get the stainless steel hardware
needed to put everything together. I
went to the local McClendons, but they didn’t have anything with the thread
pattern I needed. They sell the nuts,
but not the bolts! I didn’t have enough time to go to Tacoma Screw, which is
only open during the week until 5:00pm, so the party has been delayed.
I did get a chance to continue troubleshooting the wiring in
the car. Boy was that a challenge and I
ended up cutting almost all the wire wrapping to do it. Heavy sigh!
Saturday morning, I started looking at the heater controls
which were not working at all. I figured
out that I was not getting power to the #3 fuse and had to trace that back to a
bad connection. Once I get that figured
out, both the heater fans and the temperature controls worked like a champ, but
that was three hours of work!
Next was the windshield washer. Guess what.
It worked right out of the box!
How about the wipers?
Not so lucky. The low speed and park
functions were working fine but the high speed did not work. There was no reason for it not to since all
the wiring looked correct. So I pulled
the wiper motor out, which is a real PITA, then opened the motor to find the
high speed brush was stuck. After a bit
of soldering and cleaning it started working fine.
My final item of the day was to get the side markers and
headlights working. Of course, neither
worked out the box. My original goal was
to install a daytime running light and auto headlight module. I thought it would be cool to have something
like that. Well, that was the first
thing I took out! Too much
complication. After rewiring with that
out the system, I tried the side makers, which worked fine. Then the headlights, which did not work! Troubleshot this for about two hours before I
discovered a bad ground on the left headlight!
Of course, I didn’t think of trying it on the right to see if they
work! So, both headlights working, high
and low beam. That was a full Saturday
and I was done.
Sunday I decided to attack some of the accessories. I noticed the interior lights were not coming
on, but after trying a different switch, they worked fine. Next I tried the new switch I installed on the
dash to turn on the lights. Not so
good. Blew a 20 amp fuse. After looking at how I wired it, I can see
why. Battery direct to ground! Okay, rewired that one and now the interior
lights work.
Next was to try the map lights, which are mounted on the new
rear view mirror I purchased. Worked
great!
How about the radio?
It worked too!
Now I’m feeling pretty cocky! So, I have a few switches that are blank
right now. The radiator fan unit I
bought has a manual override that can be used to turn the fans on when you turn
on the A/C or if you just want to have a switch in the car to turn them on. So, I wired in one of the unused switches to
power the fan. And the fan worked great!
My final thing was to wire in the “starter kill”
switch. After taking out the keyless
start system I originally put in, I didn’t have a starter lockout and still
wanted one. I have a space in the center
console for the original start switch which was going to be a momentary on type
since it was going to be used to turn over the engine. I bought a new switch that is on/off and
wired that in with a relay. So now,
without that button pressed, the starter will not engage.
Now, everything appears to be working except for the center
indicator cluster which I need to etch a new circuit board for so it was time
to put all the wiring back together. I
spent four hours trying to re-bundle the wires and the more I worked on it, the
more I disliked how it was coming together.
I’ve always been worried about the relay position inside the center
console. If any of these relays goes
bad, I have to take the entire thing apart to get to them. Plus, there is a lot of wire going in a very
tight space. I’m just thinking this is going
to be a place for failure.
So I’m going to rewire it again. I know!
I’ve rewired this three times now.
But I just don’t feel comfortable with it and I don’t want to have a
breakdown on the freeway because of my wiring.
I’ve spent too much time working on this car to leave something in which
I not at all comfortable. So, time to
get out the wire crimpers and do this again.
Looking at the complexity I took out of the system over the
weekend, I’m really thinking I can make it even simpler by removing a lot of
the relays. I think I’ve been over
protective of my switches by using so many relays. Also, I think I can move the relays up under
the dash pad instead of having them inside the center console. This will make them easier to get to if I
need to troubleshot and will remove a great deal of the wiring out of the
center console.
Can I ever leave well enough alone? Probably not.
