PIAA 540 Wiring to High Beams

I just know this topic has been beaten to death and I have read through several posts on auxillary light wiring but I need some help. Where I live in IL the police are very hard on teen drivers!!! My son has a 2002 Tacoma SR5 4x4 and I have added PIAA 540 to his bull bar for the country roads at night. By state law these lights must be wired to the high beam circuit so they cannot come on when low beams are utilized. I know if he were to be stopped that he will be ticketed. I have the harness that came with the light kit installed, but I am unsure where to tap the switch power wire (for PIAA 540s relay) into the high beam circuit to only provide power to the auxillary driving lights when the high beams are on. Any suggestions? When I look at the vehicle headlight schematic it appears there is always power to the head lights once the relay is closed the combination switch ground side switches for the high and low beams. Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

Well it was nice enough yesterday I pulled out the multimeter and figured it out. Utilizing the Provided harness by PIAA, and a lighted OEM fog light switch from Toyota instead of the PIAA supplied switch. I connected the main power to the B+ battery terminal, the main ground to the chasis ground that runs to the body and the battery. I then removed the connector from the drivers side headlight hooked up the multimeter to ground on the battery and probed the connector. When the combination switch in the cab has the low beam in the "on" position the right side of the connector has 12V, when you have the high beams turned on the top terminal of the headlight connector has 12V as well. On my truck the red and green wire goes to the top terminal and is what I tapped into for the trigger wire to supply 12V to the oem switch inside the cab which in turn provides a switched power source to the relay to turn the driving lights on and off. The driving lights now cannot be activated when low beams are on, but when the high beams are on can be turned on and off. I believe I have done this correctly and in looking at the schematics, it appears I have. If anyone has any comments or question please let me know.

 

U have any pictures of how u set it up?? I been trying to wire it but no luck so car. Not good with the wiring and all. Thanks

 

I was trying to do this same thing and I could not locate the red/green wire. I want to know if it runs into the cab and where. I would like to tap it inside the cab so I don't have to run another wire through my firewall.

I was looking at a cluster of wires coming from my steering column and I was hoping to tap it there. I could not locate the red/green wire because its a tight area and I have all the boxes and wiring for my remote start clustered in there. Is it in that mess somewhere or am I looking in the wrong spot?

 

I have the same set-up (sort of, same function but wired a little differently) and I was not able to find where they come into the cab and just spliced the wire in the engine bay.

You should only have to take one set of wires through your firewall. You don't have to run power from the batter back to the switch, then back out to the relay. Power the switch from somewhere inside the cab, the OEM lighted switch does not have much draw, then run a wire (switched power) from the switch, through the firewall, to the relay. Power for the lights would be taken directly from the battery (or fuse panel under the hood) through an in-line fuse to the relay and then powering the lights. I hope that makes sense, electrical diagrams are tough to explain over the internet... Let me know if you have any questions, this is how I wired mine and they work great.

 

This sounds correct to me. You just used the factory high-beam circuit to supply 12v to the relay solenoid, and you interrupted this signal via a switch inside the cab. Perfect and simple.

 

Before I started I checked out the wiring diagrams from the 2007 FSM and that was my plan B. Plan A was finding that red/green wire. I have it set up just like you have except I supplied the 12v switch power from a fuse tap inside the cab.

I wired it to a SPDT carling rocker switch (ON1/OFF/ON2) I have ON1 wired so it turns the lights on anytime the key is on. I am going to wire up ON2 so the lights come on with the high beams.

I was rushing against daylight when I started. I wish I took some pics to do a write up of the process.

I will just man up and run another wire through the rubber gasket in the firewall. That seems like the best way.

 

Nice! I kinda wish I had run mine that way so I could override the high beam relay and have them on whenever I want if needed. Post up some pics of the install when you're done!

 

Install done. Will post pics to my build thread tomorow and hopefully I have enough for a halfway decent write up.

I looked real hard for the red/green wire and found nothing. I ended up wiring up a fuse tap with a diode to the high beam fuse in the engine compartment fuse box. I ran my fuse tap wire back through the firewall and up to my switch.

I made an attempt at finding the wire that ran to the hi beam fuse in the cluster of wires that ran through the firewall, but decided it was too cramped and I don't have the patience to find a needle in a haystack.

Thats why I took the easy route and tapped it like a cousin from maine.

 

Heres the link to the write up for what I did. I still could not find the red green wire that I was looking for, so I used a fuse tap off of the hi-beam fuse in the engine compartment fuse box.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-builds/150612-eriks-build.html