Found a mess under the dash

[npschuma]

Hey all

I have been lurking on the forum for awhile and finally got myself a 3rd gen T4R, its a 1997 SR5 4WD with 278k miles on it.

The purpose of the buy is to learn how to work on cars and slowly fix it up and start turning it into an off-roader/adventure vehicle

So I got it home today and noticed an extra wire hanging under the dash under the steering wheel so I popped the cover off and... oh boy

It looks like a previous owner had installed some sort of alarm system maybe remote start... not sure but its an absolute mess there are 2 control boxes one is labeled '6908A' which appears to be a Silencer Security Systems product. It looks like all the wiring for it was just thrown together - there are splice connectors, extra fuse connectors, random wiring running everywhere. I think it has some sort of a starter disable circuit and the truck does not have factory keys (although do not think there was an OEM security system for this year)

Does anyone have any advice on how to get rid of this? I wonder if I need to buy new OEM wiring harnesses or just really carefully go through diagrams and pull things off and re-splice back to factory specs... I will eventually want to put in some accessories and this mess makes it hard to know what to splice into but don't want to start ripping stuff out and lose my ignition or power to any components (all components work so far other than the rear sliding window but found several broken wires in the door splice today which I am hoping is the culprit)

While looking around for any non-factory looking wiring, I also noticed a wire running off the harness going to the MAF sensor under the hood that looked odd - it runs to a factory connector with some sort of taped over plug snapped into it - not sure what this is or if it should be there if anyone knows

I have attached pictures below

 

[pluton]

I hate when POs add sloppy alarm wiring jobs, I can't stand that the electrical system has been f'd with, and have always torn out what I find. Oh, and the alarms never work properly by the time I get the car anyway. Junk...
Sounds like your rat's nest is more elaborate than the ones I've had to deal with in the past.
If it was mine, I'd visit some local car stereo/alarm installers and price out a professional job of removing the alarm. Might come in at $50 flat or maybe a bit more. Big city prices can be higher, but Flag should be reasonable.

 

[Jeckolame]

I hate when POs add sloppy alarm wiring jobs, I can't stand that the electrical system has been f'd with, and have always torn out what I find. Oh, and the alarms never work properly by the time I get the car anyway. Junk...
Sounds like your rat's nest is more elaborate than the ones I've had to deal with in the past.
If it was mine, I'd visit some local car stereo/alarm installers and price out a professional job of removing the alarm. Might come in at $50 flat or maybe a bit more. Big city prices can be higher, but Flag should be reasonable.

+1

 

[Kanoe]

I recently had to deal with this in a friends f250. Took me about 6 hours but it had been a service truck and had a lot of stuff installed.

I just slowly and carefully removed piece by piece and wire by wire, restoring the factory wiring as i went. In places I had to replace a chunk that was too badly mangled but I just did 1 at a time so not to loose track. Eventually it was back to original.

Use solder and dual wall heat shrink for the best repair. Good low temp electrical tape for where you do not need to cut the original wire.

It can be done.

 

[toyotaspeed90]

Take your time, if wanting confidence just google whatever alarm brand is non the brains and then look for wiring diagrams- which will tell you the starter disable wiring.

Other than that, generally the alarms are basic units that either have self contained sensors (as in - one plugs in that came with it that wasn't part of the original truck) or tap into the vehicles existing wiring (like dome light, door locks, 12v switched)...

Starter disable is usually the only area that NEEDS to have the wires cut and spliced. Usually these make sense when trying to put the stock harness back together.


You could do a very simple test to see if it's even doing anything- unplug the alarm brains and try to start it, see what happens or what does/doesn't work. It will give you an idea of what you're looking at.

 

[npschuma]

Thanks for the replies - I carefully started unplugging stuff first from the after market devices (think it was an alarm and remote door unlock setup) and realized it was running off a conversion harness so took that out and plugged the factory wire back in and it starts just fine, seems like all electrical components work now I have to go back and get rid of all the Scotch Lock connectors everywhere - ugh

Does anyone know - does the 1997 4runner have a dome light on when door open or a buzzer with key in door open or headlights on? If those features exist, they are not working - I fount one connector with a cut yellow/green wire under the trim panel on driver side front but can't seem to find where the other part of the wire is...

 

[pluton]

Dome light, when the domelight switch is in the rearmost position, should go on when any of the four doors are open. The rear hatch only works the rear dome light.
Mine has a solid sinewave alarm tone when the headlights are on and the driver's door is opened.
I routinley disable all warning tones, bells and buzzers EXCEPT the headlight-on warning....that one I like.

 

[3bears]

Thanks for the replies - I carefully started unplugging stuff first from the after market devices (think it was an alarm and remote door unlock setup) and realized it was running off a conversion harness so took that out and plugged the factory wire back in and it starts just fine, seems like all electrical components work now I have to go back and get rid of all the Scotch Lock connectors everywhere - ugh

Does anyone know - does the 1997 4runner have a dome light on when door open or a buzzer with key in door open or headlights on? If those features exist, they are not working - I fount one connector with a cut yellow/green wire under the trim panel on driver side front but can't seem to find where the other part of the wire is...

nice job with the clean up, I hate when I buy a car that someone has cobbled together wiring etc. luckily my current 4runner was not molested, other than the radio wiring, which you think would be simple but was a rats nest of cut wires and electrical tape, why couldn't they have just used an adapter harness ?

 

[phattyduck]

While looking around for any non-factory looking wiring, I also noticed a wire running off the harness going to the MAF sensor under the hood that looked odd - it runs to a factory connector with some sort of taped over plug snapped into it - not sure what this is or if it should be there if anyone knows

I have attached pictures below

That's OEM there. It is a condenser (capacitor) for filtering power to the ignition system. There should be a little clip that it goes into somehwere (can't remember how it looks on the early trucks). Worst case, just tape/zip tie it to the harness to make it look clean.

Good job getting rid of a crappy alarm wiring job. You may still want to wire in a remote lock/unlock setup and maybe put in a hidden fuel cut switch for security...

-Charlie