I know this is a long shot, but can anyone offer a preliminary prognosis on how much headache I'm in for?

I knew this car had wiring issues when I acquired it, but now is the first time I'm finally tackling it. I know next to nothing about electrical, but want to learn.

As far as symptoms, the alarm system is so screwy that I don't even use it (but would like to). I suspect a lot of this mess involved a home-done sound system, which I don't care about at all. The antenna was broken and I've already removed it. The speaker wiring was so messy that I've already cut all of them.

But a bunch of the interior lighting has never worked, and the door-ajar ding never worked.

If you were me, where would you start in trying to untangle this mess (besides taking it to a shop)?

Are there any components that are obviously for the sound system that I can safely remove to simplify figuring out the alarm and lighting issues?

Any advice/input greatly appreciated.

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(little off topic i apologize) but how'd you get the antenna out? was it easy? i need to disable the motor in mine so it stops going up when i'm using usb.


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Getting the whole antenna out is not necessarily "easy" (my main difficulty was in getting the wire out), and I posted in this thread about it somewhat:

https://www.toyota-4runner.org/3662241-post14.html

Can't you just disconnect it to stop it?

yeah, i just didn't know what to disconnect other than the motor itself.


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The connector is behind your passenger wheel well. It's easy to get to, just remove the plastic wheel well cover (one 10mm bolt and a bunch of plastic clips). It's even easier if you also remove a few fender bolts so you can move the fender a little.

good grief! Gotta admire the persistence there. Your previous owner seemed to think he had better ideas then Toyota and did it with a lot of wire. A couple of thoughts. Since adding aftermarket stereo is trivial with a proper harness I would trace anything that goes to the center dash and is connected to the new stereo and then pull it. Hoping the previous person left the exisitng plugs so you can fix that section pretty easily. Your reall issue is the alarm. Messing that up may kill the ability to start and you said you are not expereinced with electrical. I would look at paying a local alarm shop to undo it - that way you have some fallback if they screw it up. I would not touch that without a Toyota wiring diagram and a diagram for the alarm