Build 1982 FJ43 - my ‘replacement’ build

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Get the brackets from @cruisermatt for the koito relays and fuses. Cleans up the install nicely.

cruisermatts.com

Koito Headlight Fuse & Relay Brackets FJ40

Custom brackets for mounting the fuses and relays when upgrading to the Koito H4 headlights in your FJ40 or FJ45. Fits all 40 series Purchase your headlight kit here! MADE IN THE USA
cruisermatts.com
 
Picked the 43 up from the shop last weekend. I’d say I owe you all an update, but I’ve just been driving it! Probably 200 miles since pickup, but you’d never know from looking at the cluster (speedo not working!) lol

Here’s one from tonight, drove up to the park with the grubbies.

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Wife needed some foodstuffs, so of course I volunteered for the quick trip!
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Got home last night and spent some time in the garage. Few small items on the list for this month.
1. A good wash. The radiator mess (explosion) I had on my drive out to Valley Hybrids left rust stains all over the frame, front axle and body panels. Simple green didn’t take it off. I need to address that in a big way. Any advice? Thinking dilute CLR and a parts brush to start.
2. Washer reservoir has a crack in the bottom, so need a new washer/coolant bottle and a coolant top off due to a small hiccup on the drive home. Washer hose is cracked as well.
3. Mount up the Koito H4 kit. Stock lights are quite dim. Loose laid the harness last night, will probably need to extend the power leads and make some other adjustments. My non-us rig has the battery shifted back, so not a perfect place to easily mount the relays and fuses. I have the cruisermatt brackets. Show me what you guys did?
4. New battery tray, strap, replace a missing battery mount bolt.

Luckily, all this work is in the same corner of the engine bay, should be able to knock it all out in the same push.

Picture of the rust, but there’s a lot more in every nook and cranny.
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I had a different approach. I altered a cb mic holder for the fuses, so they clip on and off.
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Thanks for the inspiration. I ordered up some H4 flag terminals and new 187/250 terminals for the relay holders, looks like I’ll be able to remove just shy of 10’ of wiring from the Koito harness from two areas, should clean it up a good bit!

Also added some extra terminals for my fuse block replacement project to the order, timing tbd on that one!
 
mdsims said:
Thanks for the inspiration. I ordered up some H4 flag terminals and new 187/250 terminals for the relay holders, looks like I’ll be able to remove just shy of 10’ of wiring from the Koito harness from two areas, should clean it up a good bit!

Also added some extra terminals for my fuse block replacement project to the order, timing tbd on that one!
Click to expand...
I considered deleting a bunch of wiring but then came up with the genius and very much not lazy plan of always having extra wire on hand if I need it.
 
I've done it both ways - coil excess wire and customize the length.

It is odd how they do not provide enough wire to run across the firewall, and precisely too much to run across the radiator.

Since customizing the length makes looming the spliced sections awkward (it is a vinyl sheath, not split) you're faced with taping and relooming the wire. This is all doable but at this point you might be tempted to make your own custom fusebox that has relays for headlights and room for expansion.

In my mind the big advantage of the koito kit is it's plug and play simplicity. Use Matt's brackets to put the fuses near the battery and the relays near the RH headlight. Route the wire along the front cross-member and under the radiator. This is stock for 40s up to a certain year. Coil the excess and zip-tie the coils out of the way, near the headlights and battery.

If you decide you want to have a more tightly integrated custom setup then consider building an Ultimate Fusebox:

slcfj62

Post in thread 'Headlight wire harness FJ60 and FJ62'

Schematics and Technical Design Details

Here are the schematics for the FJ60, FJ62 and FJ40. When I originally upgraded the headlights in my FJ62, I built a wire harness from a kit. It was built around three discreet relays mounted behind the air cleaner and wires that went across the bottom of the radiator to get to the headlights on the drivers side. I was never really happy with how it turned out. It worked OK, but I thought I could do better. I scoured the Internet looking for a better relay package and came across the Bussmann RTMR relay module. It is designed and rated...
 
Last edited:
TreadingLight said:
I've done it both ways - coil excess wire and customize the length.

It is odd how they do not provide enough wire to run across the firewall, and precisely too much to run across the radiator.

Since customizing the length makes looming the spliced sections awkward (it is a vinyl sheath, not split) you're faced with taping and relooming the wire. This is all doable but at this point you might be tempted to make your own custom fusebox that has relays for headlights and room for expansion.

In my mind the big advantage of the koito kit is it's plug and play simplicity. Use Matt's brackets to put the fuses near the battery and the relays near the RH headlight. Route the wire along the front cross-member and under the radiator. This is stock for 40s up to a certain year. Coil the excess and zip-tie the coils out of the way, near the headlights and battery.

If you decide you want to have a more tightly integrated custom setup then consider building an Ultimate Fusebox:

slcfj62

Post in thread 'Headlight wire harness FJ60 and FJ62'

Schematics and Technical Design Details

Here are the schematics for the FJ60, FJ62 and FJ40. When I originally upgraded the headlights in my FJ62, I built a wire harness from a kit. It was built around three discreet relays mounted behind the air cleaner and wires that went across the bottom of the radiator to get to the headlights on the drivers side. I was never really happy with how it turned out. It worked OK, but I thought I could do better. I scoured the Internet looking for a better relay package and came across the Bussmann RTMR relay module. It is designed and rated...
Click to expand...
That’s pretty funny, so much extra wire in all the wrong places. Anyway, I’m committed. Looking at it, I won’t really need to cut off all the sheath, I can just shorten two parts, adjust the wire lengths, new terminals at the relays and the driver headlight connector, and reuse it all. I think the only wire splice I might need is the ground as it hits the transition from the power lead to the first headlight. Feeling in the harness, it’s pretty chunky right there: Toyota must have buried a tap there anyway, 2 wires walk into a bar, only one came out.
 
mdsims said:
That’s pretty funny, so much extra wire in all the wrong places. Anyway, I’m committed. Looking at it, I won’t really need to cut off all the sheath, I can just shorten two parts, adjust the wire lengths, new terminals at the relays and the driver headlight connector, and reuse it all. I think the only wire splice I might need is the ground as it hits the transition from the power lead to the first headlight. Feeling in the harness, it’s pretty chunky right there: Toyota must have buried a tap there anyway, 2 wires walk into a bar, only one came out.
Click to expand...

That's what I did. I emailed coolerman and ordered new terminal ends and just shorten certain wires as needed.
 
Finally, a report on the work done over the past couple of months.

Rig delivered to Valley Hybrids 9/22, came home 11/1, just shy of 6 weeks. While she was out of town, got some organizing done, moved my future 3FE project into storage, mounted some cabinets, and relaxed. Also took delivery of that new front bumper, and all my 8274 parts came in.

As for work done at the shop: no easier way than just posting a copy of the invoice. Overall, great experience. Always hard giving up control, but in the end I'm glad to have had multiple trained eyes on it and the extra support to knock out some bigger items: new rad/wp/hoses/multiple flushes, leaking t-case output seals, tuneup, electrical work.

Some of the unexpected items they found and corrected:
  • Rear driveshaft was shot, out of phase and U joints were gone. That was rebuilt. I'd noticed bad vibrations on my drive out there, but hadn't connected the dots.
  • Front driveshaft was badly rusted out, pin end of the slip joint was paper thin, replaced with used shaft.
  • Missing chassis grounds and other items, hacked out fusible link, etc.
And of course, some bigger ticket items I didn't have done, gear whine in the trans and tcase, and some more electrical stuff I was planning to do myself.
 

Attachments

Morning of the pickup, couldn't have been happier.
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Drive home from Valley Hybrids (November 1st) was relatively uneventful. Made a pit stop after the first 20 miles to check on things, found hissing from the radiator overflow hose at the radiator cap end. Super weird, because that side of the system shouldn't have any pressure. Let it cool some and took that hose off, fully plugged with styrofoam beads. Cooled a bit more and took the radiator cap off, more styrofoam floating in the radiator too.
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Cleaned it out as best I could and drove up to meet the wife and kids for lunch. As the whole cooling system is new, only explanation I could come up with is a piece shipping popcorn must have been stuck in the water pump, a hose or end of the radiator and got pushed into the system/broken down into small pieces by the water pump. I cleaned out the overflow, overflow line and the top of the radiator a few more ties and this is no longer an issue.

However, the wiper reservoir was cracked, so eventually I ordered up a new combo unit from @Racer65 along with the cap and overflow hose. Big thanks to Roger for letting me swing by for same-day pickup. Got those installed and topped the coolant off. Was already in the area wrapping up the Koito H4 installation.

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Sidelined a bit by some planned medical stuff. Nothing terrible, good actually. I’d already had most of the Koito H4 install done, just needed to make the final connections to the battery and bolt up the relay bracket (wanted different hardware, the SA stuff was junk). Thanks to @cruisermatt for the great brackets. Only modification I made was to open up the relay holes a bit to fit some stainless cap screws I had in the hardware bucket.


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The fuse brackets are great, and the relay bracket sure tucks those up tight into the corner of the apron/bib. Taking the excess wire out netted about 10’ of removed loom and a birds nest of wire. Not all the extra wire is shown, I used a good bit for crimp practice.


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