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Dash lights pinout diagram?

4K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  mhall616 
#1 ·
New member, my wife and I bought a 2009 FJC yesterday. Hail damage, but we can live with it if we replace hood, cowl, and cowl extensions.

Anyway, one of the weird things on this is that the idiot lights on the dash are not illuminating correctly. For instance, put it in 4L, and the Check engine and Low Oil Pressure lights illuminates. Open the door and the Windshield Washer Fluid Low light (I think that’s what it was) illuminates. I don’t know the whole history of the vehicle, but the guy we bought it from is the second owner, and very open and honest, mechanic, totally trusted him. He said it’s done it since he had it, can’t explain other than it started life in Canada, and maybe something strange happened in manufacturing.

I’m thinking that somehow the wires in the dash connector plugs were inserted into the wrong spot on the connector itself. Only thing that makes sense to me.

Sooooo, I’ve searched and can’t find it anywhere on the forum. Can anyone direct me to a pinout diagram for the connectors behind the dash, please?

I am very familiar with searching forums and Googling stuff, so please don’t tell me to “Search is your friend.” I got it.
 
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#2 ·
If nobody has gotten into your wiring previously I would find it hard to believe something is plugged in wrong. Connections close to each other are typically so different the chance of accidentally doing so is taken out of the picture. One thing you can do that may possibly be haunting you is a bad ground. The motor, frame and chassis all need solid clean grounds. I don’t mean looking good but clean them to be sure. It is a simple cheap place to start with possible favorable results.


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#3 ·
Does it have the original dash cluster visible or does it have an aftermarket overlay that is incorrect? Perhaps post a photo of the instrument cluster face. I'm wondering if the correct lights are coming on, but that they are mislabeled.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Thanks for the responses. I’ll try to get a picture of the dash. I don’t think anyone has been into the dash.

This is new to us, like 2 days old, so I’m not sure where the grounds are located. Any diagrams or threads you can direct me to? And now I’m not doing a proper search, haha. But I am short on time, and off to work.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Open the hood, look at the battery. Look at the negative side, black terminal, -. Follow each wire and with in a short distance all the points should hit. That is it in a nutshell. Schematic for that would appear to make matters worse.
Actually there are 18 distinct wiring-harness chassis grounding points at various locations throughout the vehicle.

A complete set of electrical diagrams for the '07 model (generally useful for all models) can be downloaded from www.purefjcruiser.com: scroll down the LH margin until you hit More Information, then Technical Documents, then FJ Electrical Diagrams. The ground point locations are shown on pages 50-53.

But, probably not a grounding problem. Waiting to hear your response to gearwrench's question regarding speedometer calibrated in KPH or MPH.
 
#10 · (Edited)
That may be a useful clue.

If the story about originally being sold in Canada (did you run a Carfax or similar background check before purchasing the vehicle?) is true, the speedometer would have been calibrated in KPH. If it now has a MPH speedometer, the entire instrument cluster has been replaced, likely sourced from a junkyard wreck, and of course the odometer reading is suspect.

Exactly how the electrical connections to the MPH cluster were made is the question: were the connectors on the wiring harness of the Canadian-origin-vehicle incompatible with the mating connectors on the US-origin MPH instrument cluster? Did someone try to "improvise" the connections but got it wildly wrong?

You'll have to pull the instrument cluster and look at the rear where the connectors are located.

Aside from the bizarre instrument cluster anomalies, I would be anxious to try to determine what the actual mileage on the vehicle is, as the current odometer reading might be wildly incorrect.

And having a non-functional low oil pressure warning light would potentially be suicidal.
 
#11 ·
With your guys help, I figured it out. It was an original Canadian FJ, brought to the US, instrument cluster changed from KPH to MPH. Compared our current to the Canadian owner’s manual, and all the lights that are illuminating improperly would be 100% correct if it was still a KPH instrument cluster. I wish they hadn’t done that, we could easily read the MPH on the inner scale of the KPH instrument cluster and our lights would be correct.

Interestingly, they converted the kilometers to miles on the odometer. There was a mileage discrepancy on the Carfax, but when I did the math, it worked out to be almost exact. 85,431 km = 53,084 miles, and that’s what was reflected on the Carfax mileage discrepancy and consequent registration in Montana. So I feel good that all is well.

SOOOO, anyone have a pinout diagram for the connectors, along with wire colors, so if I ever do get in there I can change things around and make the lights right?
I think now that the mystery is solved, I might just live with it. I made up a little chart showing Canadian lights versus our lights, so I know that if our Auto LSD light comes on, what we really have is a CEL. Conversely, if our CEL comes on, it’s really a VSC Off.
 
#12 ·
I know its an old thread but did you ever resolve the issue? I have a 2010 that originated in Canada also that had a dash overlay installed and some of the dash light icons dont match up. Researched changing the instrument cluster but looks like the Canadian models may use a different cluster.
 
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