‘89 FJ62-Headlights issues-put on your detective hat!! previous owner chsngez (1 Viewer)

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Working on getting my headlights to work. Previous owner did some headlight/relay wiring that I’m trying to sort out and get working. At this point rotating the switch on the turn signal arm will turn on all marker lights, dash lights and high beam indicator lights when you pull or push the arm. Headlights are not working at all.

Opening the hood reveals some additional wiring and two relays (marked Hi and Low) mounted to the drivers sidewall. There’s also a foot switch above the left foot rest.

New wiring logic is (as best I can follow): wire directly from positive battery post goes to one side of each (blue wires) of the two relays.

Opposite post (yellow) of the relays goes to each of the headlights in pairs-Hi relay goes to inside nils, Low relay goes to outside bulb.

White (ground) wire goes from each relay to sidewall.

Black wire from each relay goes to each side of the foot switch (which appears to be a single pole/double throw).

Center post of foot switch has two wires coming off it that have been cut (see pic)

Red wire on relay (center pin) goes no where.

I have fiddled with the following: blue wire from battery has power into each relay. If I jump from blue wire to yellow (to lights) the low beams come on. I have discovered that inside bulbs are completely disconnected and the plugs are gone.

since this is my first FJ, I’m not sure what I’m looking at but there is a set of relays under dash to left of steering that make clicks when I turn on light switch and pull or push the arm. There is also a random relay mounted to firewall above steering colum that’s nothing connectex

Ive attached a bunch of pics of the above.

Anyone want to take a crack at what I’ve got and how to go about sorting it out? I have no idea why new wiring/relays were added and have yet to track down fuseable links (bad design Toyota!!!) and such

Thx for reading all this!!! Thoughts?

Bri

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I have never seen such a cluster. Is bypassing all that wiring crap and returning to the original headlight wiring even an option. By that I mean is the original headlight wiring still in tact and in place? You can maybe download a FSM with the wiring schematic on here somewhere.
 
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Stock FJ62 headlight wiring was designed by aliens from a different galaxy. That's how weird the original headlight wiring is for the 62. They're hard enough to fully understand on an unmolested 62 that once a previous owner gets done brainstorming a new way to wire them without leaving any documentation — the next owner is pretty much screwed.
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer about this but that's the lay of the land unfortunately.

If I was in your shoes, I'd start over and purchase a brand new proven FJ62 headlight wiring harness (ARB) that comes with wiring instructions and try to wire the headlights up again according to the included instructions.

You may just have a malfunctioning relay - but man, the FJ62 headlights were designed by the devil.
 
You said the truck was new to you. Were the head lights ever working?

"You may just have a malfunctioning relay - but man, the FJ62 headlights were designed by the devil." True, absolutely true.
 
The headlights have never worked for me.-I've only had the truck for 2 months-it sat in a warehouse for 5 years and after I purchased I had every gasket and seal replaced. They were ALL leaking......

Curious about the ARB harness you mention-how does it interface with the existing headlight/turn signal switch? Does it have it's own relays? Does it have it's own connectors for the lamps themselves? I'd be interested in looking into that. Tracing wires and trying to not destroy working systems that are loomed in with the defective ones is not something I look forward to.

Also-you mention a possible bad relay-it's difficult from the FSM wiring diagram to determine which is the actual relay-I'm assuming it's one of the ones in the block up underneath the dash to the left of the steering colum? I actually have a new one-went ahead and ordered it from PartSoug when I placed a big order.

I'm curious-what is it about the circuit design that makes it a nightmare? That everything is ground switched rather than power switched? Or?
 
....also: previous owner (i have another pair of words I use) cut off the inside beam connectors (yep-they are just gone with wires dangling). Are those readily available?

I'm doing some thread reading regarding the ARB harness and upgraded lamps-hopeully enough of my trucks OEM parts/wiring is still intact to allow installation without to much deviation!!
 
After doing some research I decided to take folks advice and see if I can just connect back upas much as the OEM wiring as possible and see what doesn’t work.

did that and I now have main (outside) headlights!!! Woot!! They also switch to high beams!

however the PO cut off the inboard lamp connectors (high beams) so I need to source new connectors.

one thing-since the connectors are gone, can someone diagram which wire (color code) goes to which pin on bulb? Wiring diagrams don’t have the actual pins.

Thx!!
 
I just picked up a parts 62. If I get a chance tomorrow I’ll inspect the wiring and take some photos for you. Otherwise if. I one answers before then I’ll post something using my computer
 
I just picked up a parts 62. If I get a chance tomorrow I’ll inspect the wiring and take some photos for you. Otherwise if. I one answers before then I’ll post something using my computer
That would be great thx.

BTW-if your parts 62 has rear seatbelts and the plastic fuel vapor collector thingy behind access panel next to gas tank filler let me know!

BK
 
You keep saying the p.o. Cut the inside connectors. Do you mean the wiring going to the inner headlights?

The wiring isnt rocket science. Get a FSM and start tracing it out. What they did was wire the oem trigger wires to that floor switch, then wire the outer headlights to be both high and low beam lamps. Lazy move by a hack. You can make either system work, the hack job, or oem.

That foot switch is nothing more than a splitter to activate either high or low beams. The center post is the feed wire. P.o. Probably ran the oem harness to that switch with both wires from oem relays then used foot switch to select high or low on the outer lamp bypassing the high beam inner lamps.

Spend the coin, get a factory manual, either cd, paper or online and decipher what they chopped out. Not complex, just tedious.
 
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Thanks for the above regarding what the PO did-the footswitch makes sense now.

The "hack" the PO put in either wasn't completed or something went wrong as several wires were cut and not terminated including the center lug of the footswitch and just laying around (center lug of footswitch, all wires from new relays to high beams, etc). The new high beam wiring went down to the bulb but the connectors are gone. The PO had cut off the OEM high beam wiring close to where they emerge from the wiring looms on each side and the bulb connectors are gone. Nothing of the new hack worked when I got the vehicle.

I spent some time reading threads and started troubleshooting OEM wiring starting with the headlight switch and relays next to steering column. Those functioned and I had voltage at the OEM ends sticking out of the looms at each headlight cluster relevant to which position the headlight switch was in, so I figured I'd just resplice everything back together to see if it worked.

I was able to open up the looms enough to splice extra wire onto the ends and to each of the outside connectors just matching color coding from looms to tails of wire still attached to bulb connectors.

But since I don't have the high beam connectors and the FSM wiring doesn't say exactly which lug of the bulb goes to which color, I thought I'd see if someone either had a better diagram of the bulb pin layout or pictures. Might be good to have pics/diagrams of the main bulbs as I could actually have the high beam/regular beam elements wired backwards?

Really appreciate the above description of what the hack was trying to do. I'm curious-what is the main reason folks go to aftermarket direct voltage wiring and relays? Does the OEM wiring degrade over time and suffer voltage (resistance) loss? Or does the OEM system somehow limit current to the bulbs based on allowed wattages back in the day?

Again-thanks for the all the info.
 
You keep saying the p.o. Cut the inside connectors. Do you mean the wiring going to the inner headlights?

The wiring isnt rocket science. Get a FSM and start tracing it out. What they did was wire the oem trigger wires to that floor switch, then wire the outer headlights to be both high and low beam lamps. Lazy move by a hack. You can make either system work, the hack job, or oem.

That foot switch is nothing more than a splitter to activate either high or low beams. The center post is the feed wire. P.o. Probably ran the oem harness to that switch with both wires from oem relays then used foot switch to select high or low on the outer lamp bypassing the high beam inner lamps.

Spend the coin, get a factory manual, either cd, paper or online and decipher what they chopped out. Not complex, just tedious.
And yes-a FSM is on the way!!
 
I'm curious-what is the main reason folks go to aftermarket direct voltage wiring and relays? Does the OEM wiring degrade over time and suffer voltage (resistance) loss? Or does the OEM system somehow limit current to the bulbs based on allowed wattages back in the day?

Again-thanks for the all the info.

Be happy he used relays and didn’t truly direct wire it. Guy needed headlights, probably knew nothing about the factory manuals and just did what was easy and fast. It wasn’t the best hack but I’ve seen cars where people wired things with speaker wire 🙈 or even house wiring and wire nuts 🙈🙈🙈
 
I spent some more time (finally!!) and was able to get high beams working also!! Woot. Each OEM loom on each side had two wires (red/yellow/blue and red/white/blue) still available after connecting the outside bulbs and since I'm not familiar yet with which filaments of the inside bulbs should be illuminated at "high beam" setting I just wired up two bulb terminals with one wire and the remaining terminal with the other. I'm sure this is way out of spec but it does get the bulbs to light when in "high beam". And it's not pretty but it works-I plan on removing most of the metal at the front this winter to straighten a few things and will clean up the wiring at that point-baby steps.....

Now just need to aim all the bulbs.

Still waiting for my FSM to show up so I can do some reading up on the entire headlight system. In the meantime-I'm curious-does someone have a quick and dirty explanation of which filaments in which bulbs should be lit during regular and high beam operation?

With headlights working I took the rig and dog for a drive last night and had an amazing sunset view!!

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