2018 Taco TRD Offroad

Greg

Adventurist
Senior Staff
And so the build begins again. The insane demand for the FJ put me in the black with a significant margin on a trade in. Even with 140k miles on a 4 year old vehicle.

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Congratulations on the purchase!!! Great color

Saw a nice Habitat available earlier that will fit like a glove in that bed.....:spy

@Goose Gear
 
Scoping things out and planning what I want to do this caught my eye. So I put a voltmeter on it. It's a guarded positive post in the engine bay driver's side relay/fuse box and it's right after the the battery fuses. So rather than everything coming directly off of the positive battery terminal I'm going to make an extended fuse box tapping into that terminal instead. The project box from amazon and my other supplies from McMaster Carr arrived yesterday. Time to get started.

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2018 Tacoma hot positive post inside the relay box 2.png
2018 Tacoma hot positive post inside the relay box 1.png
 
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Fuse box drilled and fitment checked. I had intended to use both mounting points in the side wall for the box but that would make it impossible to open the OEM fuse/relay box.

Going to wait for a dryer day to start wiring.

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I would recommend staying out of the fuse block for power.

A good general rule when adding accessory wiring is to stay out from between the vehicle and its battery. If you ever have a failure, it's one less thing you have to inspect. And if the something on the accessory side causes a failure, you've not severed any links between the vehicle and battery.

You're talking one wire to the battery post that is fused, and then all your accessories into the new fuse block. It can be done without being invasive.

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And proper labeling :)
 
I would recommend staying out of the fuse block for power.

A good general rule when adding accessory wiring is to stay out from between the vehicle and its battery. If you ever have a failure, it's one less thing you have to inspect. And if the something on the accessory side causes a failure, you've not severed any links between the vehicle and battery.

You're talking one wire to the battery post that is fused, and then all your accessories into the new fuse block. It can be done without being invasive.

And proper labeling :)

Sage advice noted.
 
@Mitch

You know. After I read your post I had a mental image of me undoing the nut on the post within the fuse box and then watching the bolt drop out.
 
@Mitch

You know. After I read your post I had a mental image of me undoing the nut on the post within the fuse box and then watching the bolt drop out.
LOL, a possibility I suppose, I've never undone one! You could always loosen the nut and see what the stud does. If you've never had to disassemble a Toyota fuse block, it's no fun. :D
 
So. Because I looked at this and said "nope".
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I ended up with this.
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Both sides use deutsch connectors for the lights. Another deutsch connector allows the plastic cowl to be removed.
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Fuse block grounds to the sidewall. Power for the lights parallels the cable for the wiper motor under the cowl.
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Thumb screws hold the lid on. Should keep mud, dust, etc., out of the fuse block.
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I have a voltmeter coming in for that open blank.
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Heh. I'm pretty sure I paid more for the wiring setup than I did for the lights.
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I'm always impressed with clean wiring jobs. My wiring looks like a first grader did it no matter how hard I try. (no offense to talented first graders!)
 
posts #13 and #14... NICE WORK!

Thanks!

I'm always impressed with clean wiring jobs. My wiring looks like a first grader did it no matter how hard I try. (no offense to talented first graders!)

This site helped a lot.
https://www.wirecare.com/manufacturer/deutsch/deutsch-assembler

I went looking for deutsch connectors for the Rigid lights and this page makes complete assemblies. Seeing the backshells available for the plugs changed my plans from routing the lines through gaps between the cowl and sidewall to create a harness for under the cowl with receptacles mounted in the cowl.

And I did spend more for wiring than the lights. A lot more when you consider stuff like the $50 crimping tool I had to get to crimp the deutsch connectors and the whoops-thats-not-going-to-work-like-I-thought parts that I have left over. They'll eventually get used though. The 12 circuit blue sea fuse block that I used for this project was one of those "whoops" parts.
 
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