Wiring harness behind dash melted.

[MyFirst4Runner]

Yesterday I bought a 1996 Toyota 4Runner Limited. Previous to me someone installed an aftermarket car alarm on it. They removed a section of insulation from the factory wires to tie in the wiring on the alarm, soldered the connections and taped the junction with electrical tape! Needless to say the tape came loose in the wires to the headlight circuit, causing a meltdown of those wires and the surrounding ones too. There is evidence of melted wires throughout the main harness as far as I can see, that is halfway down the dash looking underneath at the main harness running at the top, behind the dash.

Even better, the wires to the driver's side airbag were 99% melted through. It was probably less than a half a second or so from an airbag deployment.

Enough bad, now for some good. This 4Runner doesn't even have a door ding in it. It's wearing all of the original paint, The interior is mint and it's been serviced by a Toyota dealer in Virginia almost exclusively. It runs silky smooth, the oil is clean, the trans. fluid is cherry red and clean, it's really a nice truck, well worth fixing even with 152,000 miles.

So here's my question. Have any of you replaced this wiring harness and if so how difficult was it for you? Is there a procedure somewhere on the net or images somewhere of the wiring harness routing behind the dash? Maybe someone knows where I can get a harness for a fair price or something like that. Anyone who has knowledge about this subject will be a big help to me, and I would appreciate any input you have.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[shootmymime]

sorry cant really help

ohh man sorry to hear that!
but i had a question come up while reading that...

would disconecting the neg. battary cable stop the air bag from blowing up?

but sorry i dont know about the wiring harnes behind the dash but u might be able to find it here

user : user
password: password

http://search.ebscohost.com/Login.a...>.php?t=113019&highlight=arrc&authtype=ip,uid

hey i hope u get that smoken hot rig on the road again!

 

[gapboi210]

most vehicles retain power for airbag deployment for up to 10-15 minutes even with total power loss; ie batter disconnect. Not sure if the 4runner does this though. They do this incase of a sever collision destroying the battery or wiring harness to enable the airbag to still deploy.

 

[MyFirst4Runner]

Tried the link but to no avail, so I called several Toyota parts departments within a 250 mile range and got the price down from the $1480 the local dealer quoted.

I found a used harness locally, but it has been out in the weather for about 2 years in a rolled over vehicle.

Thankfully the sub-charge didn't cause the bags to deploy. Here's a pic of the left airbag wires. Look just above my index finger. Passes for extra-crispy.