I know its a common problem for people to break their harnesses when they do leveling kits or lift and so forth, so I thought I share what I did when I broke mine. I installed a 3" leveling kit right after I first got the car. I didn't realize how sensitive the wire harness was when I did the install. After I finished the install, I turned the car on and saw all the lights on my dash and kinda freaked out. So I did a little research and found out the cause of the lights and came to the conclusion that I busted my harness. I pulled off the old harness and checked it for continuity with a multimeter just to make sure that was the problem, which in conclusion proved the harness had been damaged during the install. I was pretty bummed out since I was a broke college kid and I didn't have the money to buy brand new harnesses, I went about researching a much simpler and cost effective solution.

What I ended up doing was I made my own harness. I did this by saving the plug ends of the old harness and then I bought some black and red wire from radioshack, and then to ace and bought some clear tubing. before I cut the old harness, I measured the length of it and cut the clear tubing to size, then I fed the red and black wire through the tubing. After that, I soldered on the old plugs to the proper ends and wrapped it with electrical tape. I checked both wires with a multimeter for continuity and they all passed. So I installed the new harnesses on the car and did a recalibration. All the lights on the dash that were previously on went off and I was once again a happy college student with a properly operating 4runner.

I have been driving with these "new" harnesses for over a year now and they been driven in water, snow, mud, dirt, ect... and I havent had a since problem with them.

Here are some photos of the wire harness installed on the car. (This incident happened over a year ago, but I finally decided to post a write up on it) I dont have any photos of the harness out of the car or when I first installed it. Sorry if its a little hard to see the harness from all the dirt and mud.

Good fix, same as I did over a year ago

great tip, thanks for sharing. did you need to do a zero point calibration to clear the lights?

the lights clear themselves

it was a pain routing the cables through the original retainers and guides

If you threw codes, I would do a zero point calibration. It never hurts to do one after you put a lift or leveling kit on your car, excpecially if the ride height or vehicle ride angle changes from the stock height. Its just a good idea because of the yaw sensor has a chance of being out of calibration with the new ride angle.

I wish I had tried this before spending 225 on a new sensor and wiring. The mechanic told me that it wouldn't work when I suggested it

Better to have an oem harness if YOU yourself won't be making it.

The labor going rate is what $80-120 an hour. So I bet they would charge 1.5 hours to make a new harness. That alone almost pays for a oem harness. Plus what if it doesn't work somehow, they have to start all over again. Not worth a mechanics trouble IMO.

OP, you just saved me a lot of money. Many thanks! Those OEM harnesses are crap. Regular auto speaker wire will probably last the life of the vehicle.

I had this happen too when doing lift install. Luckily this thread & the speaker wire suggestion worked out great.

Here are some additional tips though:
1. The end attached to wheel hub...cut the wires to be soldered a few inches beyond the black clip cover that slides off the clip itself. Make splice far enough to allow clip cover to slide off/on (~6"). That way the plug cover can slide back over the plug without a splice interfering. Then shrink tube or "liquid black tape" the soldered area. (It'll make sense when you see it)
2. Watch video on how to solder two wires. I would get solder with flux built in to make it easier.
This is good one...
How to Solder two Wires together. - YouTube
3. After repair, the abs & vsc lights were still on. However, after driving a little bit, all lights turned back off.

Hope this helps.

Wish I would of read this before I spent the $$$ at the stealership. I did the lift and it was all good. Yesterday I installed UCA's and that is when fit hit the shan. I have the sensor and waiting on the harness to come in. I botched both on this one. Actually my helper did it. I was doing the drivers side control arm. He didn't loosen the UCA long bolt before breaking the tapper on the ball joint. As soon as he pulled the nut off the joint the UCA popped up and damn near yanked the harness in two. I new it was toast as soon as I heard it. Turned on ignition and sure enough the thing lit up as expected.

I know this is an old thread, but OP: you're going to need a new outer tie rod end and lower ball joint pretty soon.

Whenever I do anything with the front end, first thing after removing the wheel is to remove the ABS sensor (easier than disconnecting the electrical connector), wire, and tuck it up inside the engine bay. With an electric impact gun, 10mm socket and some needle nose pliers, it takes less than 30 seconds.

Yes, it appears that is exactly what I did when I put in Bilsteins last weekend. Got the ABS, VSC TRAC, and VSC OFF lights. Tried to do a zero point calibration, but of course that didn't work since the ABS system is showing an error.

I have no issues soldering wires and replacing the current wire with speaker wire once I figure out where the issue is. The problem is, I can't get the current wires out.

How do you remove the connector that goes into the back of the hub?

Bueller... Bueller...

Anybody got any tips for removing this harness?

I just depressed the clip and pulled. I don't recall it being anything odd.

This is a cool idea. If my harness ends up being the cause of my ABS/Trac issues I'll probably go this route.

I doubt it'd be super practical or useful, but what about putting stainless steel braided sleeves over the cables? Seems like it'd add a little more protection and look pretty cool at the same time.