Depending on which model you have, you could have the complete wiring harness, or you may be missing one side, or both sides of the wiring harness. If you lucky, you have both sides, and you just plug the sensor in and everything works, if you have the SR5, you likely have neither.
Sensor harness:
If you are missing the wiring harness in the center of the dash, you have two options:
- Solder the wires directly onto the ambient light sensor pins
- Purchase Lexus part 82143-60110
I opted for the Lexus wiring harness. Since I'm in Canada, it cost over $40, but I’ve seen it listed from US dealers for $18.
BCM harness:
If you are missing the pins going into the body ECU F9 connector, then we have a bit of an issue. It seems as though Toyota decided not release any terminal information for the F9 connector, so you have three choices:
- Buy a T-harness (option i chose)
- Fold and stuff pins (found this on a Tacoma forum, but seems like a short waiting to happen)
- Buy repair terminals from Toyota. These were $20 each x3 - yikes.
T-Harness
As mention, I chose option 1 because I was also installing a remote starter (and didn't want to tap directly into the factory harness).
iDatalink makes two different T-Harnesses for the 5th Gen 4Runner - ADS-THR-TL5 and ADS-THR-TL7. From the marketing info, you may notice the TL5 is for the G-Key model 4Runners, and the TL7 is for the "Push To Start" models. What they don’t say however is that the TL7 is the only one which includes the F9 connectors. The TL5 has the T-Harness for the steering column and OBD2 connector and expects you to tap into the F9 connector.
Since I was doing a remote start - I bought both (Bestbuy sells them for $30 each). If you are only looking to add the pins to the F9 connector, you need the TL7 harness, regardless if you have the G-Key or PTS model, they both use the same F9 connector.
The T-Harness has a bunch of connections coming off, meant to go to a remote starter. I cleaned this up considerably, and soldered everything directly through (pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2, etc.), and took just pins 20, 21 and 22 to the Lexus harness above (plus 3 more to the remote starter).
Pin mapping:
Light sensor Pin 6 - Body ECU Connector F9, Pin 20
Light sensor Pin 5 - Body ECU Connector F9, Pin 21
Light sensor Pin 3 - Body ECU Connector F9, Pin 22
Attached is a picture of the finished harness. Ignore the wireless going up to the top left, they are for the remote starter. If your not doing the remote starter, you would just have the light sensor and T-Harness.
Conclusion
So there you have it, the light sensor can be added to any 5th gen 4Runner, but might not be $5 and 5 mins. Although if you opt for direct solder onto the light sensor and the fold and stuff method to add bcm pins, it wont cost any more than the $5.
I noticed you're from Canada too. what city you from?
I'm in Greater Vancouver area.
