This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
One of the first things I did when I got mine home was put it in the safe! Along with the VIN plate and Gifu Body emblem. Didn’t want to misplace those... I need to try to translate that plate one of these days.Yeah I'd give up a finger for one of those.
I wish mine had suicide doors like the brochure
poor me. jk... I did talk to the new body guy about it and he said "anything can be done you just tell me what you want". Got my mind spinning
I wish mine had suicide doors like the brochure
Don’t encourage me!!
Hey Mark! I’ll email ya but the turn switch is right in the center of the dash, slightly towards the drivers side. Photo stolen from FJ CO’s restoration.
!
Well as this will probably be the first mud truck with semaphores I guess we gotta figure this outNathan and I have a long email going about implementing the semaphores into Project Lara, but there is an issue I need the collective help of the MUD members with.
Bit of FJ25/28 turn signal electric background :
My research into the EARLY FJ25/28 schematics have shown that there were two versions of turn signal lighting. I do not know if both versions were imported into the US or just the Version #2 described below. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this?
Version #1 Semaphores only for signaling. The semaphores were to be used with the three wire column mounted turn signal switch. +12V came into the turn signal switch on one wire and depending on the switch position, was sent down the other two wires, left or right, to activate the solenoid to deploy the semaphores and to light the semaphore light. There was no flasher, so the lights were simply on solid.
The semaphores also had three wires. One was a ground wire, one was the feed from the turn signal switch and the third was tied to the internal semaphore lamp and was fed back out to the dash mounted turn signal indicator lights. The semaphores were used on trucks that did NOT have front or rear flashing "normal" turn signals. These trucks had three rear facing lights: Two rear lights were Stop lights only and were located on the corners where you expect them to be. There was a third rear light that was both Tail and Stop. The front Bib lights were Park lights only.
Version #2: This used either the column mounted, or dash mounted 6 wire turn signal switch. (Electrically these two switches are identical.) This is the system everyone is familiar with. Two rear lights that serve as tail and brake/turn lights on a single bulb, and front turn signals and bib Park lights.
Here are the dash mounted turn signal switch terminal ID's and what they are for:
F terminal: Flasher Input (GL wire on column switch) in both cases this comes from the L terminal of the flasher. The B terminal of the flasher goes to +12V
SS terminal: Stop Switch Input (GW wire on the column switch) comes from the switched side of the brake switch. Other SS terminal goes to +12V
FR terminal: Output to Front Right turn signal lamp (GY wire with triple bullet connector on the column switch)
FL terminal: Output to Front Left turn signal lamp (GB or GO wire with triple bullet connector on the column switch)
RR terminal: Output to Rear Right turn signal lamp (GY wire with single bullet connector on column switch)
RL terminal: Output to Rear Left turn signal lamp (GB or GO wire with single bullet connector on column switch )
OK so far nothing we can't handle. Then along comes Project Lara and Nathan whos has a burning desire to run both the semaphores and the flashing turn signals, at the same time, using just the ONE dash mounted turn signal switch.
At first I assured him that not only could I do that, but I could make the semaphores flash also. I have since been humbled by these simple devices...
So you are thinking, well all you have to do is tie the wires from the semaphores that are connected to the deployment solenoids to the FR and FL terminals of the 6 wire switch and BOOM! They work! They sure do... They go up and down, up and down right in time with the flasher... Hmmm... Oh wait! This one is easy to solve, just remove the flasher and jumper the two wires that fed it together. Yep that does work. The semaphores deploy and light and stay deployed and lit as long as the turn switch is on. Problem solved? No... cause now the front and rear lights do not flash at all, a feature we must have. All I did was duplicate what the three wire turn signal switch does.
OK... lots of head scratching, a few evenings of tequlia fueled brain storming and I had it! Leave the single flasher off and jumper the two wires as before, then add TWO flashers connected as follows: B terminal of flasher #1 to the FR terminal of the turn signal switch, L terminal of flasher #1 to the right front and rear turn signal lights.
B terminal of Flasher #2 to the FL terminal of the turn signal switch, L terminal of the flasher #2 to the left front and rear turn signal lights.
Now when you turn the switch to the right +12V is fed from the F terminal to the FR terminal through the flasher causing it to flash and output to front and rear lights.
Next we attach the right semaphore deployment wire to the RR terminal on the turn signal switch and the left semaphore deployment wire to the RL terminal on the turn signal switch.
How it works: A constant+12V comes in on the F terminal. Switch the turn signal to the right. Constant +12V is now on the FR and the RR terminal. The semaphore is attached to RR which now has a constant+12V on it so it deploys and stays deployed. The flasher is attached to the FR terminal on the turn signal switch then to the lights so it flashes the front and rear lights! Repeat for the left turn signal and pat yourself on the back!!!
I started drawing this up and decided I had better actually wire it up and test it using real hardware before declaring victory.
I got it all wired up and sure enough it worked! Both left and right front and rear lights flashed and the wire for semaphore deployment had a constant +12V on it. I was so thrilled! Right up until I hit the brake switch with the turn signal on... What happened? BOTH lights started flashing! Thinking I had a short somewhere I repeated the test with the other flasher same thing both sides flashed... Sigh....
It took me another evening to figure it out. It's the fact that Toyota combines the brake and turn signals on one element of the bulb using an ingenious arrangement of the contacts in the turn signal switch. This would not be an issue if the brake and turn were separate bulbs.
So back to square one...
I did find one solution. On a car audio site I found a drawing showing how to use a relay, a 10000uf capacitor, a 10k resistor and two diodes to create a circuit that takes a flasher signal input and turns it into a constant +12V output ideal to turn on the semaphore. Basically the relay is turned on and the capacitor is charged when the turn signal is ON and when the turn signal turns off the capacitor discharges through the relay coil keeping it on. The relay is connected to +12V so provides a constant on signal that can be used to deploy the semaphore. I built one last night and it does work but there are issues. First the relay, relay socket, capacitor, and other components take up a lot of space. Second the inrush current to charge the large capacitor is measured in AMPS. This will cause anything on that circuit to dim when activated. (I could isolate it to it's own circuit of course) Last it is not Toyota.
Last I found a couple of companies that make festoon bulbs (the kind the Apollo semaphore uses) that have built in flashers. So I can make the semaphores flash if I can just figure out a way to use the one switch to do two tasks.
So there you have it. Any ideas on how to accomplish this seemingly simple task using period correct parts would be appreciated.
If anyone wants to see the drawings I have done would be happy to scan them in and post them here.
Mark aka Coolerman
I have a set of mechanical semaphores as well as a set of electrical ones so we could go either route. I had hoped to use the electrical ones and use that dash switch, but perhaps we've run into a roadblock with that route. So perhaps I'm missing something. I thought that the semaphores would/should flash but maybe not, and frankly if they don't that's not a big deal either.
