Builds "Scout" the 1977 FJ40

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Smoke!

So something super disappointing happened two Saturday's ago. I woke up, walked in to the garage and it was filled with smoke from the ceiling to about 4' down. As any person would do, I checked to make sure there wasn't anything currently on fire. I checked my air compressor, which I leave turned on 24-7. I checked everything plugged in to a wall, lights, tool chargers, the circuit breaker panel, the furnace, the hot water heater, everything. I opened the garage door to let the smoke out just as my neighbor the Chief of our local fire department backed out of his driveway. I flagged him down and asked if he'd help me take a look. After about 5 minutes of us looking around, I lifted the hood of the Land Cruiser to find a burned wire coming from the positive lead on the battery. I suspect this is where most vehicles would have a fusible link... mine did not. I disconnected the battery and closed the hood and didn't look at it for a week. I was devastated. I could see a burned wire in the main harness all the way in to the cab.

Last weekend I looked further and found the wire burned all the way to the gauge cluster where the positive lead to the ammeter connects. It took a few hours but I disconnected and removed the entire harness. I labeled every connection and reached out to Coolerman last weekend. I've not heard back but I'm hopeful he can help. Unless that is, one of you happens to have a freshly rebuilt harness for a 77 FJ40 lying around that you don't need. Have any of you run in to this before? I'm still looking for the source of the problem but I can't seem to find it. Any suggestions??

wire.jpg
 
Not a lot of experience but glad you found it when you did!

Seems weird it happened after sitting, short of some kind.
I don't think you'd need to replace the whole harness?
 
bhsdriller said:
Not a lot of experience but glad you found it when you did!

Seems weird it happened after sitting, short of some kind.
I don't think you'd need to replace the whole harness?
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree, the issue is I can't see evidence where a short would have been caused.

I think a few of the wires will need replacing, the one that burned likely affected some of it's neighbors in that harness.
 
KeilOver said:
Is it possible that a rodent may have chewed through a wire?
Click to expand...

Great question/thought KielOver,

I looked over the harness and vehicle after removing the harness and saw no evidence of mice. It’s such a mystery, I even tested the battery wondering if there was an internal short. Still no definite cause.
Keep up the suggestions you guys!

And make sure you have a fusible link installed!!

Cheers,
Adam
 
Sorry to hear that this happened. I just got my 40 in January, and didn't think about the fusible link. I'll run out and check it now. When this whole mess is over, I'd love to drive over and check out your rig.
 
KeilOver said:
Sorry to hear that this happened. I just got my 40 in January, and didn't think about the fusible link. I'll run out and check it now. When this whole mess is over, I'd love to drive over and check out your rig.
Click to expand...

Thank you, such a bummer but I'm trying to look at it as an opportunity to take time to clean and rebuild the switches and other areas that I now have more access to behind the dash. 40 years of dust is pretty substantial.

Congratulations on your 40 purchase! That is super exciting and I can't wait to check it out in person!! PM me and let me know what works for you.
 
Wiring problems are not fun. I dealt with some issues, see my build thread. Coolerman is very difficult to get in touch with but is extremely helpful and knowledgeable when you can. @ToyotaMatt helped me out a lot as well.
 
If you already have everything disconnected and labeled, it's not that much additional work to pull the harness out completely. Lay out a sheet or two of thin (cheap) plywood, get yourself some velcro tie-downs. Strap the harness down to the plywood. I used some of these things for that. They were a little fussy, but they worked.

Amazon link

I also traced around the harness with a sharpie onto the plywood, but that wasn't all that necessary. You can label the branches on the plywood as well to keep track of everything.

Then turn on some music and carefully pull off the loom tape, being meticulous about maintaining the locations of each branch of the harness. Meaning, use velcro ties before and after every "branch". It's really not that hard at all, just a little time consuming. This is the only way I know of to gain confidence over what's damaged and needs replacing.

As you probably know, Coolerman also has a store where you can by color-coded wire. They aren't a perfect match to OEM, but they have the right solid and striped colors on them. He also sells all of the OEM style connectors you'd need.

Sorry this happened, man. But it shouldn't take a ton of electrical knowledge to fix unless your whole harness is smoked. It just takes a little time and some attention to detail.
 
reddog90 said:
Wiring problems are not fun. I dealt with some issues, see my build thread. Coolerman is very difficult to get in touch with but is extremely helpful and knowledgeable when you can. @ToyotaMatt helped me out a lot as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much reddog90! I have only tried to reach him here on Mud, should I be using another method? Email, snail mail, Toyota symbol in the sky like Batman, send a raven? :)
 
cbmontgo said:
Man, this could’ve been so much worse. Electrical fires scare me to death. Awesome that you’ve got a chance to fix it.
Click to expand...

For sure, the whole thing could have burned down. To be a bit more honest, I had all of the windows rolled up for a few weeks and when I opened the back of the Land Cruiser the day before this happened, I smelled a little fuel odor so I rolled the windows down. I can't imagine how bad it could have been if the whole thing turned into a 40 year old Molotov Cocktail.
 
Pierps said:
If you already have everything disconnected and labeled, it's not that much additional work to pull the harness out completely. Lay out a sheet or two of thin (cheap) plywood, get yourself some velcro tie-downs. Strap the harness down to the plywood. I used some of these things for that. They were a little fussy, but they worked.

Amazon link

I also traced around the harness with a sharpie onto the plywood, but that wasn't all that necessary. You can label the branches on the plywood as well to keep track of everything.

Then turn on some music and carefully pull off the loom tape, being meticulous about maintaining the locations of each branch of the harness. Meaning, use velcro ties before and after every "branch". It's really not that hard at all, just a little time consuming. This is the only way I know of to gain confidence over what's damaged and needs replacing.

As you probably know, Coolerman also has a store where you can by color-coded wire. They aren't a perfect match to OEM, but they have the right solid and striped colors on them. He also sells all of the OEM style connectors you'd need.

Sorry this happened, man. But it shouldn't take a ton of electrical knowledge to fix unless your whole harness is smoked. It just takes a little time and some attention to detail.
Click to expand...

Yeah so true, I've been researching the best way to handle it and your method seems like it's the most straight forward. Making sure to secure each branch at their exact location on the harness makes sense too. I think that might be the route I go if I'm not able to connect with Coolerman. Thank you so much for the vote of confidence.

I think I started off with the whole thought of electrical fires are a little overwhelming and sometimes it's easier just to pack up the harness and send it off to an expert. I'm coming around now to the idea of doing it myself. Besides, with COVID and work being slow... what the hell else do I have to do??!! HA!
 
A clue....

Well, last night as I was falling asleep, I kept thinking of what could have caused this whole mess. I thought about the most recent things I've repaired or replaced. I knew the oil pan had nothing to do with it, so that was pretty much ruled out immediately. In investigating anything of this nature, start with the first and most obvious and work your way to the least probable. Well, the replacement of the speedo cable was very recent. As was the removal of the gauge cluster to improve the lighting.

I woke up this morning and doubled checked the harness in the area where the wire connects to the ammeter, not the burned one that comes from the battery but the other one that leads to the ignition/fuse box (assuming). I think I may have found my source.

There is a clear spot on the back of the gauge cluster and a clear spot on the ring terminal insulation where it appears there was an inadvertent connection made. See below. For some reason having a likely cause to this mess is making me feel about 3% better. If I had a fusible link this wouldn't have happened.

Below, you can see the back of the gauge cluster and a clear spot on the right hand connection of the ammeter where something sparked. For some reason it's the only clean spot in that area which is curious.

Back of gauge cluster.jpg


Here you can see a very small amount of copper shining through the insulation of the ring terminal. Any connection from this wire to ground could have caused this as this particular wire is capable of handling a lot of amps.

Ring terminal.jpg


Here they are connected. The mark on the insulation matches exactly to the mark on the gauge cluster. I believe I've found my source.

Connected.jpg


For some reason it's satisfying to at least know what may have caused this. It doesn't really get me any further down the road to driving this but it does help me (and perhaps any of you reading this) to be mindful of not only this connection but making sure the fusible link is installed.

Happy Cruisering!
Adam
 
Well I just read through your entire thread! Awesome story/history of this FJ40.
A short on the WL wire at that location would cause the solid white wire to fry all the way to the Amp Meter. Fortunately for you this is the easiest one to repair and replace!
You may find that the Amp Meter itself has been destroyed.

I can build you a new 10ga white wire from the the + post on the Amp meter to where it exits the harness. Then make you a new fusible link with the battery side connector.

The real problem is how much damage has been done to OTHER wires that were next to the White wire. The only way to know is to pull the harness apart and carefully start extracting the melted mess...

I sent you an email also...
 
Check this out....

10.jpg


This picture was taken after about 15 hours of tedious work. My wife and I took it on a spin around the neighborhood, everything works perfectly and now I just need to reinstall the stereo, defrost ducts and ash tray. I'll share a little about what it took to get here, why it happened and how someone might prevent it. In the end I'm pretty sure I could have prevented this a few different ways. I don't want you to have to go through this too, so heed this warning. If you don't have a fusible link or some form of protection on that main power wire coming from your battery to your harness, it's possible it could happen.

So my first step was removing the harness, not all that big of a deal, just unplug everything and remove the gauge cluster. The whole harness comes out through that hole. It feels like your Land Cruiser is giving birth to a huge tangled snake out of the dashboard and you're just helping it along. All told there are just shy of 1 million plugs and they're all slightly different so you won't get used to disconnecting any one style.

I labeled all of the connections because I didn't know how I'd remember, this proved to be a few minutes of extra time but saved me a bit as well.

The harness looked really good except from the battery to the gauge cluster, which looked like this......

6.jpg


I started removing the tape at the point of the passenger side horn, then headlight, cleaned each wire and rewrapped it in Scotch Super 33+ which is probably one of the best electrical tapes I've ever used. Super 66 is very similar but slightly thicker. I then cleaned each plug and relabeled the wire and moved on to the next section. The unburned section from the passenger side horn to the coil wires were easy. 10 minutes max... but then the fun started.

The burned sections looked like this when I unwrapped them. Most wires were untouched. Some wires were glued together with the melted insulation from the main power wire and the main power wire looked like someone BBQed it.

I separated out the undamaged wires, separated each "glued" together wire, cleaned everything up with acetone and installed a new power wire then wrapped it back up with new electrical tape. Each 1 foot section took about 15 minutes or so. Some sections were easier, some were harder.

From this....

3.jpg


To this.....

4.jpg


To this.....

5.jpg


All in all, it wasn't hard, just tedious. My hat is off to Coolerman who does many of these over a year. It's not a fun job but there were some pluses.

1) I have that satisfaction of having done it all myself for the grand total of about $9 for the wire because I already had the electrical tape.
2) I was able to put in a proper plug for my other accessories, radio, dome lights and other items, making it cleaner and more secure.
3) I was able to get the rig back on the road in a matter of days as opposed to months or weeks had I farmed it out to someone else.

Overall the harness was in very good condition considering a wire burned through nearly all of it. I was frankly, very surprised. Now it's perfect which makes me super happy.
 
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This picture represents the finished product of about 14 hours of time. 1 hour removing the harness, 13 hours or so taking it apart, cleaning it, installing a new power wire, re-wrapping it and labeling each connection. I shouldn't have had to do this.

9.jpg


Ultimately, I learned that the lack of a fusible link (or really any protection) is what caused this. A previous owner along the way took the fusible link out and spliced in a similar size wire taking away any level of protection. After looking back, this move could have easily caused my Land Cruiser to burn to the ground, taking our home and everything in it along the way, possibly even my wife and I. Pretty spooky when you think about it.

The interesting thing is one of the "premier" Land Cruiser specialists had this vehicle in their possession for a number of months and according to the receipt did $30,829.12 worth of work for the previous owner. You'd think they would have checked to see if basic things like the brakes worked (which they didn't) the roll bar they installed was bolted down (which it wasn't) and there was a fusible link installed... you guessed it, there wasn't one. If you think I'm being hard on this particular shop, I'm not. The number of items I've found that should have been caught and fixed by a professional Land Cruiser restoration facility is mind blowing. Okay, rant over with. :flipoff2:

In the end I learned a lesson that I think others may find helpful. Make sure the wire from your battery to your harness has some form of protection. I ordered a 40amp circuit breaker which I'll ultimately install but for now I have a 40amp fuse inline. Or if you're going a more factory/OEM route.... A fusible link is available from Coolerman at Fusible Links Oh yeah, and consider installing a smoke detector in your garage. :smokin:

Big thank you to Mark aka @Coolerman for the information and @Pierps for your vote of confidence. I'm happy to have that particular project in the rear view mirror.

Happy Cruisering,
Adam
 
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Awesome work and great write up. Food for thought for sure. My 40 is missing the fusible link and has an one wire alternator installed by PO. The harness is spliced to accommodate this “modification”
Ill have to study my electrical diagrams and see how it differs.
 
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