Fog Light Switch Wiring Help - 84160-60030
- Thread starter Demonic92
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the funny fuel gauge is for LPG
Reviving a very old thread. Did you get anywhere with this? I procured a pair of fog light switches and a front and light bar set of lights, and I want to wire them using OEM-looking switches. I don’t seem to have any pigtails to connect into, so trying to figure out the best way to wire these. Any lessons learned on your side would be welcome!
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- #24
Nice revival! I could've sworn i concluded this thread, but i guess not. The pigtail does not exist from the factory on USDM 80's, you have to fabricate it. I purchased the connectors and pins from Eastern Beaver:
And then used the pin-out diagram for those fog light switches that's supplied in this thread to create the pigtail by crimping wires to the tiny silver terminals and slipping them into the connector housing accordingly. From there, you wire it like a normal aftermarket light switch according to the pin-out.
I wired both of mine to control a relay ("to switched device" pin) that then powered the lights because the stock switch cant handle much current alone. Of course this means running wires behind the dash/thru firewall, etc. Also, here's guidance on the switch backlight/dashboard lights pin. Toyota Wire Harness Help - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/toyota-wire-harness-help.1149523/. My question on the thread we're on right now about how to get the switches to have power only when the headlights are on is probably confusing, for that, I just ended up wiring the "power in" for the switch to the wire coming out of the "TAIL" fuse, the same wire that is used for "from dashboard lights" (see other thread i linked) so that the switches would only provide power to the relays if the parking lights/headlights were on. You could also wire the "power in" on the switches to constant 12v power if you want to be able to power your lights regardless of the status of the other lights. That's a quick and dirty rundown, let me know if you need any more help/specific questions.
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Awesome. Thanks. This helps. My car is a GCC spec one, but having dug in the dashboard, I strongly feel like there isn't a pigtail (nor in the front of the car) so I think I have to manufacture it. So if I didn't care for the "with parking lights" part - I'd just wire them directly to the battery with a relay to control the on/off switch?
Any advice on what sort of relay to get?
Annoyingly (for this part anyway) I have a manual car, so the clutch cylinder blocks access to the wiring harness, so I have to run everything through the passenger side grommets... sigh.
Any advice on what sort of relay to get?
Annoyingly (for this part anyway) I have a manual car, so the clutch cylinder blocks access to the wiring harness, so I have to run everything through the passenger side grommets... sigh.
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- #26
If you don't want the "with parking lights" part, wire the switch's "power in" terminal straight to the battery instead of the parking lights circuit. The "to switched device" terminal from the switch will go to the trigger terminal on relay regardless.
Ok. I've been walking around this fog switch setup like a fox around a henhouse, and I'm starting to have an idea in my mind on how I want to do it. Thanks for your help - this is very useful. Basically, my thing is I want to wire a light bar AND a set of front fog lights, so that means one set of "on with parking lights" and one set with an "on whenever" setup. Couple of things I'm working through in my head:
I want to mount these on the left side of the dashboard, because there are two convenient blanks; so I am thinking of tapping into the rheostat switch just as you have. So if I understand the wiring correctly, then this is what I drew for my 2 cases.
So my questions would be, assuming I drew this diagram correctly (by "split wire" I mean tapping into the rheostat green/white wire):
1. For parking-only setup (i.e. front fogs), the red wire (1) in the diagram would go to the parking lights wire. Which one is that?
2. For always-on setup (i.e. roof lights), I'd wire that pin directly to the battery (or whatever constant-on fuse I can find).
3. I have a "tail fuse" in my fusebox, but I thought that's for generally operating tail lights - not for parking lights. Am I mistaken? In other words, I thought if I pull it, then there's no tail light operation period (i.e. no brakes or reverse).
4. With this setup, for #2 above, does this mean the relay is constantly powered and therefore pulling around 100mA at all times? My relay spec says it needs around 100-150mA of power, so this means it'll sap the battery if left unattended for too long?
Thanks for your help!
I want to mount these on the left side of the dashboard, because there are two convenient blanks; so I am thinking of tapping into the rheostat switch just as you have. So if I understand the wiring correctly, then this is what I drew for my 2 cases.
So my questions would be, assuming I drew this diagram correctly (by "split wire" I mean tapping into the rheostat green/white wire):
1. For parking-only setup (i.e. front fogs), the red wire (1) in the diagram would go to the parking lights wire. Which one is that?
2. For always-on setup (i.e. roof lights), I'd wire that pin directly to the battery (or whatever constant-on fuse I can find).
3. I have a "tail fuse" in my fusebox, but I thought that's for generally operating tail lights - not for parking lights. Am I mistaken? In other words, I thought if I pull it, then there's no tail light operation period (i.e. no brakes or reverse).
4. With this setup, for #2 above, does this mean the relay is constantly powered and therefore pulling around 100mA at all times? My relay spec says it needs around 100-150mA of power, so this means it'll sap the battery if left unattended for too long?
Thanks for your help!
- Thread starter
- #28
Wire #1 could go to any wire that receives power when the parking lights are on. The closest and most convenient would be the wire on the back of the fuse box coming from the TAIL fuse. More on the tail fuse later.
Correct, for "always-on" (meaning you can switch them on regardless of key status or status of other circuits, wire straight to battery.
The TAIL fuse in the fusebox operates all parking lights. Front and rear side markers, dashboard lights, and tail lights. Your brake lights are powered by the STOP fuse. "Tail lights" are the lights that come on when you turn the light switch on the steering column to the first position from OFF, "tail lights" are parking lights. The bulb in the lowest portion of the rear lights has two filaments, the lower power one receives power from the TAIL fuse and is the parking/tail light, whereas the higher power filament receives power from the STOP fuse/brake light switch. turn signals are powered by "TURN" fuse. Idk what powers reverse lights but it's not the tail fuse.
Not sure about the power draw when a relay's power terminal is wired directly to battery. I don't know why a relay that's not doing anything would be pulling any power regardless of what it's receiving power from. I'd imagine you'd have a dead battery from something else far before a relay wired directly to the battery would drain it.
Awesome. Thanks for your help. I guess you're probably right - the "power draw" is maybe when the relay is active, not when it's off (especially with the switch in the "off" position). I'm going to give it a go with that setup. I ended up overdoing my hunt for these switches - I ended up with four switches, two pigtails (cut from junkyard cars) _and_ a full two sets of Yazaki connectors with pins, so between all of that, I should be able to find something that works.
Wait, one thing I forgot to ask: so the _power_ would come from the TAIL fuse, what about the "dashboard lights" - that would _also_ be from the TAIL fuse? So I'd just run two wires from the fuse tap?
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- #32
You're welcome! As you can tell by the beginnings of this thread, it took me awhile to get everything sorted too. In fact, i think i had the lights and switches i wanted to use for a whole year before figuring out how to wire everything up. Your diagram looks good. For what it's worth, it may not be worth it to worry about the "from dashboard lights" and "ground for dash lights" terminals on the switch at all. All those two pins do are allow for backlight of the switches themselves like the rest of the switches on the dash, but the backlight is very dim and almost invisible for some reason even though i wired it correctly. ToyotaMatt just posted a picture of a fog switch with very functional backlight tho, so i couldve messed something up i suppose.Awesome. Thanks for your help. I guess you're probably right - the "power draw" is maybe when the relay is active, not when it's off (especially with the switch in the "off" position). I'm going to give it a go with that setup. I ended up overdoing my hunt for these switches - I ended up with four switches, two pigtails (cut from junkyard cars) _and_ a full two sets of Yazaki connectors with pins, so between all of that, I should be able to find something that works.
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- #33
Yes! That's what i did.
I wonder if it might be because of the age of the LED inside - some of my dashboard lights were really, really dim until I de-soldered the current 30 year old LEDs and replaced them with brand new ones, and now it's a PARTY inside - kind of overdid it a little bit, so I even dim the rheostat a bit. But definitely looks much better.
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- #35
Possible. The bulbs that backlight these fog switches in question are like the hazard switch or defrost switch - they use that weird little bulb that you twist in and out with a screwdriver. They were incandescent originally. If you put an LED in their place (I believe the bulb type is T4) it would probably be brighter.
Ok an update. Following @Demonic92 's great writeup and my crappy diagram , I am happy to report that it 1) worked, 2) the car did not set on fire, and 3) nothing seems to have fried yet.
I couldn't tap into the TAIL fuse because I have a tap on the CIG fuse for the drive recorder / electronic toll thing, and the TAIL fuse is right below it, so I can't find any way to tap both fuses - are there any fuse taps that AREN'T the usual size ones that block everything around them? But in the meantime, I decided that if I can't find some kind of a low profile fuse tap arrangement, I'll just further split the CIG fuse - since the relay only needs 100mA, I'm sure it won't trip any of the current fuses on it, and I'm OK to run the fogs when ACC is on, that's reasonable.
For the always-on roof bar, since I couldn't find any fuses in the fuse block that are always on, I just ran a wire straight to the battery and will fuse it with a 1A fuse off the Blue Sea block when that arrives.
Overall, this was far easier than I expected!
I couldn't tap into the TAIL fuse because I have a tap on the CIG fuse for the drive recorder / electronic toll thing, and the TAIL fuse is right below it, so I can't find any way to tap both fuses - are there any fuse taps that AREN'T the usual size ones that block everything around them? But in the meantime, I decided that if I can't find some kind of a low profile fuse tap arrangement, I'll just further split the CIG fuse - since the relay only needs 100mA, I'm sure it won't trip any of the current fuses on it, and I'm OK to run the fogs when ACC is on, that's reasonable.
For the always-on roof bar, since I couldn't find any fuses in the fuse block that are always on, I just ran a wire straight to the battery and will fuse it with a 1A fuse off the Blue Sea block when that arrives.
Overall, this was far easier than I expected!
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- #38
I'm not using regular fuse taps that go in the actual fuse sockets on the fuse box. I'm using the sharkbite taps on the back side of the fuse box where the wires go in and out. I know it's "bad for the wires" but as long as you do it right and use the correct tap connector for the wire size, it'll be fine.Ok an update. Following @Demonic92 's great writeup and my crappy diagram , I am happy to report that it 1) worked, 2) the car did not set on fire, and 3) nothing seems to have fried yet.
I couldn't tap into the TAIL fuse because I have a tap on the CIG fuse for the drive recorder / electronic toll thing, and the TAIL fuse is right below it, so I can't find any way to tap both fuses - are there any fuse taps that AREN'T the usual size ones that block everything around them? But in the meantime, I decided that if I can't find some kind of a low profile fuse tap arrangement, I'll just further split the CIG fuse - since the relay only needs 100mA, I'm sure it won't trip any of the current fuses on it, and I'm OK to run the fogs when ACC is on, that's reasonable.
For the always-on roof bar, since I couldn't find any fuses in the fuse block that are always on, I just ran a wire straight to the battery and will fuse it with a 1A fuse off the Blue Sea block when that arrives.
Overall, this was far easier than I expected!
Would fix your problem, as since you'd be tapping into wires on the backside of the box, there's not really any interference issues
Yep I considered using those but I can't get past the irreversibleness of that tap, and the possibility of clipping the wire if I do it wrong. I did use them before, and they were fine, but somehow that's too "final" for me.
For wire splits, I basically build my own splice these days - I extract the F pin from the connector, find compatible pins somewhere, and build my own wire splice, kinda like this:
if you don't want electrical gremlins, the backlight bulb on that switch needs to be fed from the TAIL fuse. This is because the dimmer rheostat is on the TAIL circuit. The WHT/GRN wire from the rheostat isn't actually a ground, it's the rheostat wiper, so it's only at ground potential when turned to full brightness. Turning the rheostat to fully dim however, would connect the CIG circuit to the TAIL circuit through the bulb in your switch.
In lieu of a diagram, I hope that was clear.
