Hi all-
First post here. I've got a '97 FZJ80 with about 140k miles. I'm the third owner.
Here's the TL;DR: The wire coming from my driver rear door ajar sensor switch is disconnected from whatever harness it's supposed to be connected to. I need to get inside that C-pillar door frame to see what the heck it was supposed to be connected to and reconnect it. How do I get into that space?
Here's the story for those interested
I had been having issues with the doors automatically unlocking while driving, along with a flickery door ajar light, so I did some searching on the forums, and found that the solution is often that the fasteners holding the door strikers are loose,and once tightened the problem is solved.
I tightened all the door striker fasteners as tight as I could get them with a large Phillips screwdriver (front) or a 12mm nutdriver (rear). This made things *much* better. But the doors will unlock maybe once every 10 or 15 minutes of driving now (used to be every 30 seconds, so this is an improvement).
Anyway, I next figured it must be one of the door sensor switches not grounding properly to the body. Checking them over, I noticed that the driver side rear door switch appeared to be a little loose, so I figured I'd start with that one. Took out the bolt to clean the threads and coat them with copper anti-seize.
When I bolted it back up and went to test it out, I discovered that the rear driver door sensor now doesn't work at all. The door ajar light doesn't come on whether that door is open or closed. So I took the bolt fastening it in place back out, and went to carefully remove the sensor from the C pillar and see if I could see if I'd screwed something up. When I started pulling it away from the C pillar I could feel that it was coming way too easy and with none of the tension I should have felt if that red wire was connected to something. Sure enough, with zero effort I was able to pull the wire all the way out, and found myself looking at a wire with a plastic splice sort of connector (or maybe some kind of small plug) on the end of it, connected to nothing.
Questions
So now I have some questions:
1. How do I get into the space inside the C pillar to find the other end of that wire so I can reconnect it? Do I remove that plastic trim that runs along the inside of the pillar? If so, how do I do that [in a way that won't damage the trim]? Is that all I need to do or is there something behind that as well? I'm assuming there must be some way to get into that space.
2. How come the result of the switch being disconnected is no door ajar light instead of the door ajar light being on all the time? I assumed the switch was open when the door is open and closed when the door is closed. So how does the truck distinguish between an open switch and a disconnected switch?
Thanks for any help you can offer!
First post here. I've got a '97 FZJ80 with about 140k miles. I'm the third owner.
Here's the TL;DR: The wire coming from my driver rear door ajar sensor switch is disconnected from whatever harness it's supposed to be connected to. I need to get inside that C-pillar door frame to see what the heck it was supposed to be connected to and reconnect it. How do I get into that space?
Here's the story for those interested
I had been having issues with the doors automatically unlocking while driving, along with a flickery door ajar light, so I did some searching on the forums, and found that the solution is often that the fasteners holding the door strikers are loose,and once tightened the problem is solved.
I tightened all the door striker fasteners as tight as I could get them with a large Phillips screwdriver (front) or a 12mm nutdriver (rear). This made things *much* better. But the doors will unlock maybe once every 10 or 15 minutes of driving now (used to be every 30 seconds, so this is an improvement).
Anyway, I next figured it must be one of the door sensor switches not grounding properly to the body. Checking them over, I noticed that the driver side rear door switch appeared to be a little loose, so I figured I'd start with that one. Took out the bolt to clean the threads and coat them with copper anti-seize.
When I bolted it back up and went to test it out, I discovered that the rear driver door sensor now doesn't work at all. The door ajar light doesn't come on whether that door is open or closed. So I took the bolt fastening it in place back out, and went to carefully remove the sensor from the C pillar and see if I could see if I'd screwed something up. When I started pulling it away from the C pillar I could feel that it was coming way too easy and with none of the tension I should have felt if that red wire was connected to something. Sure enough, with zero effort I was able to pull the wire all the way out, and found myself looking at a wire with a plastic splice sort of connector (or maybe some kind of small plug) on the end of it, connected to nothing.
Questions
So now I have some questions:
1. How do I get into the space inside the C pillar to find the other end of that wire so I can reconnect it? Do I remove that plastic trim that runs along the inside of the pillar? If so, how do I do that [in a way that won't damage the trim]? Is that all I need to do or is there something behind that as well? I'm assuming there must be some way to get into that space.
2. How come the result of the switch being disconnected is no door ajar light instead of the door ajar light being on all the time? I assumed the switch was open when the door is open and closed when the door is closed. So how does the truck distinguish between an open switch and a disconnected switch?
Thanks for any help you can offer!
