The electrical fun continued today. I made it my goal to get the relay mounted, the wiring harness extended, and the switch hooked up and mounted in the cab. So with that being said, here we go!
The relay was a piece of cake to mount. As much as I would have preferred to make a mounting block for it so I didn't have to drill into the fender, I couldn't see any way of making a good mount for it that would have been worth the effort. So out came the self drilling sheet metal screw. In it goes! I hit the bare metal with a little bit of primer, a quick spray of dark grey gloss enamel, then remounted the relay. Nice.
20150125-P1010295 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
After that it was onto the other side of the vehicle to extend the ARB wiring harness. This part of the process proved to be a little bit more difficult as it appears the wiring harness uses a thinly insulated 8 gauge wire. What I had on hand happened to be a rather thickly insulated 8 gauge marine cable. Despite the mismatch, I was able to get it all to work with a little bit of brute force. See, there seems to be a bit of a gap in the tools that I have been able to find. I found a crimper for 10 gauge and smaller cables, and a lug crimper for 6 gauge and larger cables, but no crimper for 8 gauge. I'm sure one exists, but it seemed foolish to get a tool for that express purpose. So I improvised by using the 10 gauge side of my ratcheting crimpers and squeezing til I almost crapped my pants. It took a ton to get the 8 gauge butt connectors set. But in the end I managed to get a good enough crimp to where a hefty tug on it did not yield.
20150124-P1010291 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
While the joint was already sealed on accounts of the heat shrink butt connector I added another piece of heat shrink on top for good measure and to make things look nice and clean.
20150124-P1010292 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
A simple couple of screws later and tada! The second black wire you see going to the negative terminal from the ARB harness is an additional ground wire used during a dual battery set up.
20150124-P1010294 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
As the positive cable is already fused over by the compressor, I don't need another fuse at the power block. Now came time to run the in-cab portion of the wiring harness.
Disassembly of the interior is pretty straight forward. The first piece to come up is the sill panel. It simple pulls straight up.
20150125-P1010300 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Next you can remove the dummy pedal by giving it a good solid yank.
20150125-P1010301 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Remove the little black nut holding down the edge of the kick panel then pull it towards the back of the vehicle. There are two clips along the side to disengage then you should be able to access the wiring loom behind.
20150125-P1010302 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Now comes the fun part. In order to run the wires out of the cab I decided to go through the main firewall grommet. This meant poking a hole. A quick jab with a screw driver and I now have said hole.
20150125-P1010296 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Tape your wires to the tip of the screwdriver, line it up with the hole you previously made, and give it a good push.
20150125-P1010297 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
After fishing it out from under the dash I hooked up the quick connector and then plugged that into the in-cab wiring harness.
20150125-P1010303 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Now here is where I deviated a little bit from the ARB recommendations. There are two wires coming off the wiring harness, one intended to be run to the ignition, the other to a dimming circuit to the control the switch brightness. As I want the potential to run the compressor with the truck off (mainly for airing up bicycle tires), I chose to extend the power wire and run it back through the firewall where I will hook it up to the fuse block. Once again, crimped heat shrink butt connector + marine heat shrink gives me a solid, sealed connection.
20150125-P1010304 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
For ease of mounting I chose to put it in the black slot between the traction control and the RSCA switches. They are pretty easy to access, open that little cubby beneath and pull out towards you. This should allow you to reach up and push the blank switch out. You'll be left looking at something like this.
20150125-P1010305 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Looking at the two switches side by side, it is evident that the Carling style ARB switch is significantly wider than the Toyota switches.
20150125-P1010306 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
That, my friends, means that some material needs to be removed from the dash. As always, when opening up the hole, go slow and test fit often. I used a combination of a file and a utility knife to carve away at the sides until I could push the switch in with some resistance. The post-trim hole looks like such.
20150125-P1010308 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Snake the wiring harness up behind the dash and pull the 5 wires through the blank slot.
20150125-P1010307 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
Hook them up to the right terminals per ARB's wiring diagram and you can reinstall the switch and the rest of the panels you removed while running the wires. You'll be left with a clean looking install.
20150125-P1010309 by
Tim Souza, on Flickr
I dare say I'm pretty pleased with the end result. Now to get busy wiring up the Hellas up front and the CB radio.
