So cool to see all of the continued progress and with your daughter

I bought those exact jack stands last weekend. Now I need to buy the same floor jack.

Since you know all these, you can now run a 3rd gen 4runner and 1st gen tacoma workshop.

I’m glad the console lid went to a good home. It’s awesome you and your kid have a 3rd gen to restore and build together. My 14 yr old has no interest in offroad capable vehicles, when the time comes she wants a compact like a Smart car or Mini Cooper or Fiat because they’re “cute”

Finally got the fronts in!


Installed! New rotors and pads as well


Lookin' good, if I do say so myself


Sitting right, just not so pretty at the moment


Kiddo did a headunit and speaker upgrade



While I got to install the alarm... yay


Let there be light!


LED's are awesome, the light is actually usable now lol. But I have a problem with the Passenger Dome light not switching on when a door is open It works fine when I switch it to ON. The Trunk Light functions no problems under the Dome setting.

Got myself a new tool cart and organized a bit


Thanks for reading

Does the door open indicator on the dash work? If not, its the door switch(es), if it does, clean the contacts on the dome light.

I'm having the opposite problem - my hatch doesn't turn on the cargo light (and doesn't turn on the door-open indicator on the dash). Still haven't torn it apart though.

-Charlie

Yes the door open indicator on the instrument cluster works as intended. And I have checked each door switch to test it.

I have been doing some researched and what I've found is that the wiring for the Dome lights are a little different. They are a switched ground or something along that line. So I'm thinking there's a bad ground somewhere.

I just peeked at the '97 wiring diagrams I have... the 'door' connection for the dome light does route back to the integration relay, not directly to the door switch circuit. Of course, the way it is drawn in the diagrams, the light would be ON all the time in the "DOOR" position, so there is some error in the diagrams.

At least it isn't the black box that is the '99+ lighting system, controlled by the gauge cluster, of all things (as are the headlight auto-off and a bunch of other things).

-Charlie

Safety first. Glad you took your safety seriously and got some jack stands.

Great thread! Keep it going. Your daughter will be the smarter one as she gets older because of your involvement. She is getting hands on knowledge how parts go together and function. And hopefully watching on how you troubleshoot when parts are not working.
She will thank you if she ever steps into a repair shop/parts store alone.

That is the idea with this project, but ultimately with everything right? Teach them what we know so they are just as independent and capable as ourselves


I did some wire cleanup today.
The previous owner definitely had some electrical done. I found what looks like previous splices for an alarm with an aux kill switch, and the truck had aftermarket aux lights at one point.
There were some wires that seemed like they were cut accidentally, Nothing spliced to them, just cut and reconnected. I even saw one with bare wire just hanging there lol

So I looked for all these mysterious cuts and found a couple that were not reconnected, I didn't have a wiring diagram for reference, so I just traced the wires to find it's matching colored end and connected them.

There were two red w/ white stripe wires by the driver kick panel that I reconnected. They both came from the wire loom coming from the floor.

Sorry I said I was terrible at electrical my description probably confused you more than anything, I don't know what I reconnected but the Dome light works as intended now which is great.

Glad to hear it is working. That Red-White wire is probably the connection from the back hatch door switch (though there are other Red-White wires in the truck that do other jobs).

Front driver's door is a Blue wire, the other three doors are Black-White.

-Charlie