ok so i bought my 4runner about a week ago and the guy said it needed a ignition switch.... the radio, heater blower, clock stays lit, all with the key off and out of the ignition... i bought it knowing it had been in a fender bender but trying everything i can to fiix the problem i had ruled out the ignition switch the day i brought it home because when i unplugged the ingition switch connecters everything still ran. but i didn't expect this at all... first off he said he just had a viper alarm installed, so thinking it could be feeding something i removed it and when i pulled the lower dash apart i found a eagles nest of wiring, very unprofessional to supposedly been done by a dealer. but i uninstalled it anyway, wires were duct taped together and bare wires were showing and i tried a lot of things and just could not seem to get the heater fan to turn off... even with the fan on the off position it was blowing air. so i started looking at some wireing diagrams and looked in the fuse box under the hood and saw that the heater relay was missing. so i went out to our parts car and pulled it out and installed it in mine and sparks went and smoke went everywhere. then we started examining where the car was in the car accident and under neath the vacum thing behind the fuse box there was a bunch of tape and erotion, we cut it off and found some awesome electrician workk.

the wires must have all been cut in the wreck... every single wire was connected with electrical tape. wires were exposed everywhere, when 2 of the wires were wiggled the fan would turn off and then back on again. what a mess!!!! so 2maro we are just going to install the fuse box and partial wiring harness from my parts car to mine!!!!!


here is a picture of it where we noticed the body repair.....


and here is all the wires cut and taped



and here is the mess under the dash




and here is some of my actual runner... for 22's i don't think it looks that bad!!!!
but still gonna get rid of them!!!





one of the rims was cracked when i recieved the vehicle...

 

Nice find on the wiring problem. Those sort of things can drive you crazy. I also like the color matched flares. That cracked rim is really bad.

 

Yikes. Was that rim wrecked in the crash? It sort of looks like hitting a bump with low inflation, though. Got to watch the low sidewall street treads carefully for pressure!

 

ya i have a set of stock ones from this wrecked 4runner i just bought... also i replaced the whole intire wire harness from the under hood fuse box all around the front end and into the cab in 2 spots yesterday... of course i did it all without looking at the fuse box... the wrecked one was a canada model and had daytime running lights so now my lights don't work, and my ABS light is on.... but thats a lot of work... and not to bad for a 15 yr. old!!! lol and i tried painting the rims today..... i found this dark brown/almost rootbear color with the hammered texture and painted them... and it dried way lighter than i expected.... so i'm going to try and find some dark grey or black with the texture because i think it looks really good and see if i can't make them look better!!!! i was so suprised when i found out this rolled runner was canada!!!!!

 

It is great to see young kids getting into a good hobby and doing good things with your time. You will be ahead of a lot of others with some practical experience and knowledge backing you up. I interview too many young people these days that have no real world experience, but can tell you all the cheat codes for Halo.

 

thanks.... i love working on cars..... and my father is a mechanic and owns his own shop and we are the biggest and number 1 shop in our city but he doesn't enjoy working on cars like he says he used to and i don't want to lose my passion for working on cars and the last thing my dad wants to see when he gets home is a car to fix so i don't want to be a mechanic but i want to be able to fix my own stuff... if you get what i mean?!?!?! idk but ya all my friends always play halo... and i have an xBox and all that but i don't even use it.... i get too frusturated when i cant suceed in games... LOL but i would far rather find ways to make my car better and more convienient and easy to use.... once i get everything fixed on mine i am switching a e-locker into it... and then i'm gonna put a 1st gen roll bar in it just because we have all this stuff laying around!!!! and it makes me feel so good to fix something by myself and call it fixed!!!!! its something that makes me smile for ever!!!!! but ya... wireing is going to be difficult for they headlights... i will have to skip the daytime running light relay somehow but i don't know yet... i got the diagram yesterday but i havent looked it completly over yet.... does anyone on here know if the heater in the center console has heater hoses going to it? or is it electric?!?! the limited has it and my sr5 doesn't and i was wondering how hard it would be to put it in mine.... ( i got all the parts here, why not make mine better?!?!?!) anyways.... can someone help me out????? :?

 

That is a great attitude to make sure working on cars stays a hobby. I hire engineers where I work, but only if they have some practical hands on experience with other things. No matter what you do, the problem solving you are learning right now will be valuable.

The rear heater has liquid lines going back to it and I beleive is set-up with a small heater core. I know it has it's own lines feeding it. The fan is obviously electric and located under the passengers seat.

 

Ok I don't think I'm going to mess with the heater, for now, today I'm gettimg some wheel paint, and I'm going to paint the rims off of the wrecked ones since they are all scratched up from the roll over, I already painted them once but I didn't like the color I chose

 

When I bought my 96 sr5, it had battery go south on it a month later, then I discovered the after market alarm.

I decided on the side of the road to just disconnect and remove the alarm box.
Well I never went much further under there until I started repeatedly blowing the brake light fuse.
I found some hack had cut up the wiring to the brake light switch and spliced in 3 times to the alarm harness!
The same sort of mess was made of the ignition switch with a relay as well.

An hour and what seemed like 1/2lb of wire later, I'm back to stock.
I feel you wiring pain brother!
Frank