Electrical problems (1 Viewer)

[Blackjack]

This is my first post to this forum and I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction.

I've got a 1968 FJ40 with some interesting electrical problems with the lights. There are quite a few so, I think it may be easier just to list them.

- With the light switch completely off and the brake pedal depressed, only one tail light works at a time (disconnecting one, causes the other to work).
- With the light switch in the first position, the front parking lights come on but the tail lights do not.
- With the headlights on, neither the parking lights nor the tail lights work at all.
- The turn signals do not flash (you have to manually flip it to make it flash)

By the way, I've replaced the light switch, flasher unit, and cleaned up the fuse block but so far, it hasn't made any difference.

 

[77TLCFJ40]

Blackjack,

Had a similar problem with my '77 FJ40. The rears were so rusted out, I went with a good aftermarket pair. The fronts were found to have bad grounds where the light mounted to the fender. On a '77 the ground is achieved by the light housing grounding to the fender through the mounting bolt. I had a lot of rust, so I cleaned up as much as I could, but ended up wiring a ground wire from the light housing through the bolt to the nut holding the light to the fender. It works great now, even with the OEM flasher. Anyone need a dealer bought '77 Toyota flasher??

Good luck

 

[sonoranfun]

Honestly, I would say you have some shorts or loose ground(s) someplace. If it were me I would just re-wire the whole thing. Remember, you may be dealing with very old wiring so that's not a bad idea anyway. You may also be dealing with a bad re-wire job from a po so I would still do this just to be 100% sure it was done correctly and you knew what you had. This may not be the easiest so I hope somebody will have an easy fix for you but it's a 40 and easy to do so I would.

 

[Pin_Head]

X3 on bad ground. The easy way to tell is to run a separate ground wire temporarily to the frame and see if the problem goes away.

 

[Blackjack]

Honestly, I would say you have some shorts or loose ground(s) someplace. If it were me I would just re-wire the whole thing. Remember, you may be dealing with very old wiring so that's not a bad idea anyway. You may also be dealing with a bad re-wire job from a po so I would still do this just to be 100% sure it was done correctly and you knew what you had. This may not be the easiest so I hope somebody will have an easy fix for you but it's a 40 and easy to do so I would.

I've had this cruiser for 15 years and the PO did "add" some interesting wiring of his own when they did the V8 conversion. So...it definitely needs to be rewired. Although I've rebuilt several components on the truck (tranny, front axles, engine, etc.) I'm kinda skiddish when it comes to auto electric. I guess I just need to dive in and do it--over the winter, maybe.

For now, I'll check out the bad grounds and see if I can chase it down that way.

Thanks for the advice!

Blackjack

 

[ChuckD]

Once you become One with the electrical system it will all start to fall into place. A little time with the wiring diagram, test light, and continuity tool (multimeter) will reveal that the system is rather simple. I had MANY elec issues and just about everything was resolved by cleaning connectors and switches. Look out for those crappy little plastic wire tap connectors that usually accompany add on accessories. They bite into wire through insulation and can allow corrosion in wire and loss of conductivity.