refurbishing the wiring of an AI-1000 Aisin winch, including connectors, and devising a wireless remote

[John Young]

I've become quite enamored with the Toyota OEM winch, having bought several old ones and a few new ones for the various projects I have going on. One thing I have not done until now is to really dig into the wiring. I've looked here and not found a comprehensive description of how to deal with Mr. Toyoda's winch which seems to have been used from the early 1990's to the present. Here's my go at it.

One thing I like about getting old winches is that sometimes they come with the necessary brackets. I just bought this one primarily for the mounting plates which are going to go in the Holy Truck with a brand new Aisin winch.

You can see it is pretty nasty. But on the plus side, all the wiring and the main power contactor were included. This one did not come with the winch control wand, which is typical. Fortunately I have one from another purchase.

The guys are going to cut a suitable hole in the existing bumper for the winch. Fortunately there is another 80 with a factory winch bumper in the garage that they can measure from:

And this is the brand new winch that will go on the 80 mounting plates. This is a pull from a 79 series so it has different dimensions.

 

[John Young]

Having owned a few of these winches, one thing is really clear. The control wands disappear or you forget to bring them with you at the most inconvenient times. So one of my goals is to add a redundant wireless winch controller to the existing factory wiring harness. This seems to be a little involved. But before I get to that, let me talk about connectors.

I won't bore you with how look it took me to figure out how and where to get new connectors. I will say that I feel it is well worth it to try to replace as many of the connectors as you can on the old winches. Both sides too.

For the control wand here is information you should find helpful:

These are Amphenol-style 'mil-spec' sort of but made in Japan as you might expect. Here are the markings on the factory connectors:

I did not find the OEM markings particularly helpful. I have just ordered several from Ali Express and the agent seemed to know quite a lot about these connectors. Here is what she selected for me on Ali Baba:

Item 1: MS3102R14S-6S 6Pin Female Receptacle
EXW Price: $7.00/pc for 3pcs
Item 2: MS3106R14S-6P Male Plug
EXW Price: $17.00/pc for 5pcs
Shipping Cost:$30.00
Total Amount: $136.00
Lead Time: 5~6 weeks

"As per your information, the flange panel mount socket would be MS3102R14S-6S 6Pin Female Receptacle, the straight plug should be MS3106R14S-6P Male Plug"

I have gone ahead and ordered several but I am pretty confident that this is what they are. If you google you will find them available on Digikey and Mouser. I chose to try some connectors from Ali Baba because I really don't need full mil-spec, and they were likely not that to begin with. I will update when I receive the Chinese connectors and have given them a real going over.

 

[John Young]

Turning to the Yazaki plastic connectors, I REALLY wanted to replace them all. I have hurt my fingers several times trying to get dried-up old Yazaki connectors on and off the winch and truck wiring harness. All the connectors on the used winches I've bought are really beat up. This is typical:

I figured it would be worth the effort not to have to keep hurting my fingers and also to be able to get the connectors on and off a lot more easily. It took some doing but I finally identified the Yazaki part numbers and ordered almost everything (but one). I found Mouser to be pretty reasonably price-wise and their delivery time was excellent. Here is the list:

Mouser No: 272-7283706440
Mfr. No: 7283706440

This is the connector for the cable that goes from the relay box on the top of the winch to the Amphenal/mil-spec connector mounted on the bumper

Mouser No: 272-71164026
Mfr. No: 71164026

These are the pins for the connector above

Mouser No: 272-7282706440
Mfr. No: 7282706440

This is the panel-mount 6-pin receptacle on the relay box mounted on the top of the winch.

Mouser No: 571-964269-2
Mfr. No: 964269-2

Here are the pins for the chassis-mount connector. These are slightly different in style (and nicer I think) than the OEM but they work fine.

 

[UltraFJ40]

Turning to the Yazaki plastic connectors, I REALLY wanted to replace them all. I have hurt my fingers several times trying to get dried-up old Yazaki connectors on and off the winch and truck wiring harness. All the connectors on the used winches I've bought are really beat up. This is typical:

View attachment 3603532

I got an "oops" when I clicked on the attachment pic but I know what you're saying with that.

 

[John Young]

I got an "oops" when I clicked on the attachment pic but I know what you're saying with that.
View attachment 3603550

Can you try again? I'm not seeing it...

 

[UltraFJ40]

Can you try again? I'm not seeing it...

Got it now, here's part of your post that I screen grabbed. (I reduced the size in order to see more of it in the pic)

 

[UltraFJ40]

I've done the exact same thing with a few other doo-dads on my son's 96 Lexus. I grew tired of the brittle crap making my job a mess.

 

[John Young]

Mouser No: 272-7282702630
Mfr. No: 7282702630

This is the 2-pin connector for the cable that goes from the relay box on top of the winch to the power contactor relay that normally is mounted very inconveniently under the battery.

Mouser No: 272-7283702630
Mfr. No: 7283702630

This is the 2-pin panel mount connector that goes on the relay box on top of the winch.

 

[John Young]

Ok, now let's get some context for all this and look at a typical wiring diagram. This is for a 70 series Prado but as far as I can tell they are all pretty much set up the same except for the one Yazaki connector I have not mentioned yet, the connector that goes to the ACC line and gives power to all the relays and winch wand.

BTW I have searched diligently for the equivalent in the 80 series manuals without success.

Anyhoo, after staring at this for a while and then staring at the wiring itself I think I finally have a reasonable understanding of how this thing works. Here goes:

1. No power goes to the winch until the contactor relay under the battery (called the "Main Relay" in the diagram above). is activated.

2. The Main Relay gets power on one side through an ACC line or in the case above, from the Ignition line through the 20A wiper fuse. The power goes down to the winch, out the winch out to the winch control wand and then back again, out the two wire connector on the relay box on top of the winch then to the Main Relay under the battery. The other side of the Main Relay's coil is grounded.

Key here is that it is impossible for power to get to the winch unless the control wand is plugged in.

Also interesting is the fact that the connector for the control wand has 12VDC as an input, as well as ground. So this means it should be possible to build a wireless remote control that gets power from the mil-spec connector and requires no changes to stock wiring.

 

[John Young]

Let's get back to something a bit more visual. I decided to start with just taking the harness apart.

Pretty ugly. This is the main harness from the chassis to the winch. The big connector on the right and the small Yazaki connector connect to the winch relay box at the top of the motor. The stuff on the left goes under the battery in an 80. The large Yazaki connector connects power as described above to the Main Relay, which is that rusty lump on the left. The small Yazaki connector connects to the +12 VDC power buss of the 80 when the ignition is on. Here is another view of the harness.

Here is a better view of the Main Relay:

And here's something interesting. Buried under layer after layer of red tape is this botched "repair". Evidently someone must have gotten annoyed at the Yazaki connector at some point and just cut the wire.

Here's the Main Relay after a wash. The connector at the top is what connects the harness to 12VDC when the ignition is on. This is one connector I did not think to get. Fortunately it is in good shape and I don't need to replace it.

And here's some rusty plunger action:

 

[John Young]

Looking at how bad the rust was on the Main Relay I decided to start derusting in an electrolytic bath

It took several scrubbings and then a dunk or two in EvapoRust but it got to the point where I was ok with it.

One thing I did at the end was give it several rinses inside and out with brake cleaner to get the water out and then bake it for an hour at 50C.

Thinking about the location and prior condition, I decided to use old-fashioned brush on red oxide primer on this. Here's the Main Relay baking again:

Back to the harness. I love heat shrink, especially heat shrink with hot melt glue in it. I did not want to replace all the wires, which were ok, but I wanted much better strain relief. So here's the part of the harness that sits up under the battery:

The little connector at the top is where 12VDC comes in when the ignition is on. There are two wires in this three barrel connector. The other wire is ground, and it simply loops around to the connector going to the Main Relay. To reprise, 12VDC comes in to the winch harness in the blue/black with red rings wire, and returns to activate the main relay in the yellow with red rings wire.

 

[John Young]

This is a closeup of the 3-barrel connector that connects the winch harness to the 80's 12VDC. You can see the white with black strip wire, which is ground, looping around to the other connector going to the actuator coil for the Main Relay.

Here's the same thing with the heat shrink applied. Most of this will get covered up by the original plastic flexible shield, which is still in good shape.

And at the other end I repaired the poorly 'spliced wires':

Three layers of heat shrink for strain relief.

Have I mentioned I like heat shrink?

 

[John Young]

The main relay has come back together.

 

[John Young]

The Main Relay wiring harness is done.

Which reminds me to post the Field Service Manual (FSM) section for the 80s series winch and installation which was here on Mud but which I was unable to find. Thanks to @t00manyuzers for unearthing it. Here is is again. The file name is fj_hdj_hzj-80_series_winch I'm also posting it here in a compressed form.

 

[John Young]

Here's the end result:

And just for good measure I cleaned up, derusted primed and painted the keeper. It was pretty bent up. I used heat shrink tubing to cover the bits that will rub.

I kinda like 'caution yellow' for things like this. Hopefully it will make it harder to misplace the keeper.

Here is a video showing operation:

 

[John Young]

I need to do up another set, so this time I will show a bit more about the relay box on top of the winch.

This is the starting point and is pretty typical of old winches I find in the salvage yards.

Here is a detailed view of one of the ground points. This connector is the one that goes to the mil-spec style connector on the bumper.

Here's the other side showing another ground point from the back of the two solenoid relays.

I don't like this grounding design too much. If one or the others of these bolts are missing -- and really they are mounting bolts -- then the winch will not work.

Here is the binding post for the high-current 12VDC line from the Main Relay:

The old panel mount connectors are pretty cruddy and beat up.

 

[John Young]

The chassis itself is not as bad as the other one but it is still pretty beat up.

After EvapoRust, wire brushing and straightening as best I could with simple hand tools, here is what it looks like

And here are the rest of the parts, cleaned and de-rusted:

 

[John Young]

Here is the electrical guts cleaned up

New connectors throughout except for the triangular one that connects to the ACC to power the whole thing, which I did not have. Fixed it up as best I could by wrapping with heat shrink to strengthen. Should be fine sealed with some Tessa Tape.

And here is an 80 series set up about to go in

 

[fjbj40]

Here is the electrical guts cleaned up
View attachment 3640962
New connectors throughout except for the triangular one that connects to the ACC to power the whole thing, which I did not have. Fixed it up as best I could by wrapping with heat shrink to strengthen. Should be fine sealed with some Tessa Tape.
View attachment 3640965
View attachment 3640966
And here is an 80 series set up about to go in
View attachment 3640967

You get a chance to figure out the wireless controller hook up?

I’m in the same process with the same winch.

 

[John Young]

You get a chance to figure out the wireless controller hook up?

I’m in the same process with the same winch.

Yep.