car – Wayne Connor

Strut cover for Nissan Leaf

Wayne — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 04:55:17 +0000

How to wire a factory towbar harness on a 2011 Toyota Corolla ZRE152R

Wayne — Sat, 16 Feb 2019 09:05:13 +0000

Here’s how I wired a factory Toyota towbar that I got from a wrecker. It needed to interface to the brown connector in the photos below, plus it needed to be connected to earth and power and it needed to be connected to the right indicator which was across the other side of the car. There were two wires I left disconnected (see below).

I could not find a good description of this anywhere on the web and it took me a while to work it out so here it is in case anyone else is having the same problem!

The brown connector comes off and it’s pretty obvious that the wiring harness connector plug into both parts that you just unplugged. It’s not so obvious which way round it goes. The white connector on the end has two blue wires going into the bottom and this corresponds to the fat blue wire on the bottom right of the black connector on the right.

This is a really Blurry photo of the earth connector that just gets bolted onto the chassis!

This is the electronic module, it sits in the back rear corner and bolts onto the sheet metal there.

I wasn’t sure where to connect that long green wire with the black stripe. It turns out that you have to run it right across the other side of the boot and it splices onto the blue wire which is the signal wire for the right driver’s side indicator. (I soldered this and then taped it).

I’m not sure what this blue wire is but I found this on a forum : “The blue wire that is taped back is the signal wire used when a electronic trailer brake control unit is fitted.” which makes sense. It seems to works fine with it disconnected like this but my trailer does not have electronic breaks.

Another connector that I could not work out where it goes so it is disconnected. My guess is that it is a spare earth wire for something else to plug into if needed.

There is a long orange wire that needs to come right up through the front engine wall and via a fuse to the battery. I had to extend it to make it reach.

This is the other brown connector the reverse connector of the first photo. The hardest thing was working out which way these connectors went but you can see from this photo that the thin white wire on the bottom left corresponds to the fat white wire on the bottom right, and the two blue wires coming in on the top left correspond to the blue wire on the top right.

How to change the tailshaft bearing or universal joint in a Toyota Granvia Grand Hiace van

Wayne — Fri, 08 May 2015 01:06:16 +0000

I can’t believe the lack of info on HiACE vans.

Here’s how I changed a tailshaft in case anyone else wanted to try it.

Better to have a pit or hoist. Very hard to do lying under van.
Mark with white-out or white paint a line along tailshaft/dif/gearbox so you can line everything up again later. Be very precise. It needs to be within about 5mm accurate when you line it all up again. Especially around the centre bearing.
Undo 4 bolts that join rear uni joint to diff drive shaft. You may need to move car back and forward to make this easier. It won’t fall apart – prise 2 flanges apart with large screwdriver.
Undo 2 centre bearing bolts. Support.
As you drop tailshaft, remove shaft from gearbox.
Put tail shaft in vice.
Undo centre uni joint.
Mark centre bearing thread with white-out or take a photo so you know which way it’s lined up. Undo centre bearing bolt. This is a huge bolt, done op tightly, and it has a chisel hit in it to stop it moving. There’s a washer that then comes off after bolt.
My old bearing then just pulled off by hand.
Put a little grease inside new bearing and sit new bearing on, but don’t hit it on. Be careful to line it up properly.
Do up bolt and this will press bearing on.
Do it up tight. Then hit with chisel in the right spot to fix it permanently.
Put it all back together.

Tricks:

mark well, very well.

chisel hit bearing thread before re-assembly

easier as 2 man job to help lift tail shaft.

easier in pit or on hoist.

Total time approx 2 hours. This was the first time I’ve changed a tailshaft bearing.

Manual Torque Converter Override for EF Falcon

Wayne — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 02:34:55 +0000

My contribution to ford mods.

http://www.fordmods.com/gearbox-suspension-brake-driveline-f4/torque-converter-lock-up-override-circuit-t36733.html

Manual Torque Converter Override for EF Falcon

Wayne — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:04:59 +0000

I made this circuit to control the Torque Converter lock-up solenoid. I use it for towing the caravan.

The Switch locks the torque converter ON.
Green LED indicates the torque converter locked up. (When either the ECC unit turns it on or you turn it on via switch)
Red LED indicates the torque converter locked up but the ECC unit has not locked it up, in other words, switch has locked it up.

To see it in operation, drive along and when you hit 60 or so the green light comes on. This means ECC has switched on lock-up.
Switch on the switch. No change in LED’s, as the switch has not really done anything yet.
Accelerate strongly, or decelerate, and the RED LED will come on, indicating that the ECC has tried to disengage lockup, but switch has overridden it.

I’ve noticed some interesting things…
Even with 12v on the lock-up solenoid, it WILL NEVER LOCK UP IN 1st or 2ND gear.
So if you switch on lockup while stationary in drive, it does not stall. Then start to drive, TC only engages when the engine hits 3rd gear. If you now brake, it stays in 3rd gear and the engine will shudder and stall if you stop as TC is locked up in 3rd gear at low speed.

Here’s how my circuit works.

Switch in up position = normal driving mode.

There is no change to the car wiring. The green LED comes on to indicate when the torque converter is locked up. It is interesting to watch, the torque converter comes on at 45 k/h when the car is in drive or 3rd gear in economy mode.

Switch in down position = torque converter manual lock-up.

In this position the torque converter relay is is connected to 12V, thus switched on. The green LED comes on to indicate this.

THe red LED only comes on when the ECC module has switched the lock-up off, but the switch is forcing it to be on. This is a reminder that you are over-riding the ECC setting.

ECC connects to the Lock up Solenoid (Solenoid 7) wire. It comes out of pin 96 of the ECC unit which is in the passenger side near their feet. Far better to take the top cover off the ECC and look at what color pin 96 wire is, then break this wire about 1 foot further along where there is more room, under the glove box. On my EL falcon it is a light blue wire, but there are two light blue wires, hence the need to trace it from pin 96.

12 volts power can be found at the wire coming out of pin 71 or pin 97 of the ECC unit.

and the ground can be taken from pins 103 or 76 or 77 or 51.

I mounted the two LED’s up on the dash, just above the switch, then ran wires down to below the glove box.