Gulf States Toyota Alarm System Removal - That Little Red Devil Button!

Today I delicately removed the GST installed alarm system despite my desire to just cut it out and burn it. The "S6" from my research.



I have had issues with it inducing a complete immobilization of my truck, but after some fiddling with the keyless remote and little red button it would start. I delt with it because I liked the honk when I locked and unlocked.

This weekend it (along with my one foot out the door battery) completely shut down my truck while we were backwoods camping, not an ideal place. After sitting overnight and putting a jump pack on it in the AM it started and we were able to make it home. With the alarm going off every time we hit a bump.
Seriously, 65mph on the freeway with an alarm going off. Good times!

https://youtu.be/h0-UrKI6xP0

I removed the system as soon as we got home and were unpacked, in 104 degree West Texas heat. I took lots of pictures for all y'all and I'll get them uploaded soon, just bear with me.

 

Disconnect the battery!

I have also attached the user manual PDF for the alarm system, it's the only one I've been able to find so far.

Inside I started with removing the driver's side kick panel along the floor and the foot rest, which comes out for access to the plastic retaining nut on the second kick panel.


The lower dash panel comes out with two 10mm bolts and a good tug, disconnecting the mirror controls and hood release cable. Any other button connectors you may have as well. All my others are blank.
That extra ground on the left wasn't part of the alarm, it wasn't connected to anything so I just removed that too.

Behind the lower kick panel I found several splice connectors for the alarm. These splices simply pull apart and half of it will stay on the factory harness wire.
I elected to leave those bits on the factory wires. I may go back and remove them and just tape the wire up eventually.


I had four splices and an earth in that section.
The earth was on a bolt here, a full loop connector so the bolt must come out all the way to remove the earth.


Next, the main control box is here in the upper right of the picture. It is held in with a zip tie. Clip that.

The relay on the right is part of the harness and a fuse holder next to that. The empty white connection in front goes to the red button, that was disconnected when the panel came off. The other black box just under the wire harness is the shock sensor. There is also a brown wire with white stripe wrapped around the harness, you can see the two halves of the butt connection in the middle of the picture, that goes to the plunger under the hood. Mine was already unhooked.

Just pull it through the firewall and unscrew it from the bracket. I left the bracket in case it comes in handy down the road.


This is the shock sensor.
Side Note: For those who want to keep the system but adjust the sensitivity this is your huckleberry. Just use a small flathead and turn that dial. Mine was at two and only went off from big bumps or movements.

You will need to remove the bottom of the clamshell around the steering column, there are two screws behind the steering wheel so you'll need to rotate it to gain access. This bracket will come off first with three 10mm bolts.


I missed a couple of pictures, there are three more wires that connect with the same splice connectors behind the fuse panel. I loosened the panel with the two nuts and one bolt to drop it down a bit for better access to those wires. Those three are circled here in Green.

The two circled in Yellow are connected the same way but under the steering column, here.




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Another Side Note courtesy of @Amburgers

“I had one major mishap. When trying to remove this wire from the ignition switch I was prying a little bit blind didn't have a clear view and I ripped it out completely. Copper fittings, springs, and ball bearings from the ignition switch went everywhere. Slight panic but was somehow able to piece it all back together and everything is fine. The segments in the ignition switch aren't as defined now, it's a little loose. But all is good. So use caution anyone taking this on. Remove that clip carefully!”



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The big white connectors for the ignition switch are both removed and the the factory ones plugged back in.





The only wire I had to repair was this one, it was cut and what looks like a r̶e̶s̶i̶s̶t̶o̶r̶ was spliced in. @Larzzzz corrected that it is actually a diode and not a resistor.

I cut the diode out and spliced it back together.


The last bit was removing the button from the dash, the silver collar nut unscrewed from the back and the button pulls out the front. You can cut the wires or pull the button apart to remove the harness.



That's the whole alarm harness out!


Check that your connections are solid, reconnect the battery and test it out to make sure it still starts before you go bolting all the panels back on. Then check your keyless entry works too. Go back and check all the wires if anything is amiss.

That's it! You are free of the headache.

 

Very nice.

A couple things FYI: that"resistor," is actually a diode. It lets current flow in one direction only.

Most common resistors have 4 colored bands to identify their value. High wattage resistors have the space to print the value.

 

Thank you! I was not paying close enough attention to what that was I will edit that.

 

So it turns out my battery was garbage. I bought a new positive terminal connector and battery today. I went to start it yesterday and it did the same thing as before, just one click. Multimeter indicated 8.2 volts on the posts.
I took it in to have it charged and tested, it was toast.
I went up a size to a 27F, Duralast Gold. I got a good deal through my Ford dealership buddy.

 

Glad you made it out of your predicament that resulted in this post. And congrats on the Ironman suspension. Sounds like a winner. Sub’d for the alarm removal. That damn alarm has boxed me in a few times and I’m going to refer to this to get it out. Thanks for the details!

 

No worries! Let me know if you have any questions I can help with!

 

I'm having issues with my truck starting as well and am thinking it's the alarm system. Mine doesn't look like an aftermarket alarm so it's probably either dealer installed or oem (Idk if Toyota makes one). But anyways, it starts when I use a jump pack or jump start just like you said when you went camping you did the same thing. So I'm wondering if it's your bad battery causing the issue or was it the actual alarm? Did you have funky blinking/flickering dash lights when you tried to start it? That's what mine is doing. At first I charged my battery and tried to start it but no dice. It would only start with a jump. Weird. Guess I'll have to go get my battery tested to be sure. Symptoms seemed like a bad ground because of the flickering lights, but I was thinking it could be the alarm too since the little red light by the steering wheel kept blinking even though I pressed unlocked on the key fob. Kinda odd.

 

Well I was already pretty frustrated with the alarm system so I'm fairly certain I just blamed that right away. It would seem though that my toasted battery was the main culprit and that was, in turn, messing with the alarm. The flashing red alarm light perplexed me too, it almost seemed random, even after I read through the sparse user manual. I did not have any other flashing dash lights though.

Check and double check your terminal connections if you haven't already. Follow your earths as well, those can cause lots of issues if improperly mounted or corroded. I have had experience with sketchy earthing connections too, they'll sneak up on you. My short body mounted one was broken when I bought it, I just replaced it with my battery. Could have been part of the problem too.

Here;

Not the best fix but it'll do until I replace all the cables.


I would take the battery in to your local auto parts and have them charge it and test it first, replace if needed. 24F came standard, 27F came with the towing package I believe. Either one should fit your truck.



I'm not super happy with that new terminal connector because it is a "universal" and not fitted properly to the positive post. I would like to get the military style ones eventually but I may just get the red and black set of marine ones for now so it fits right.

 

Is that wire with the diode the wire connected to the ignition switch? I’m going to venture to do this myself as well. I think it’s killed my battery twice now. Voltage checks out fine at idle and when cranking so I’m pretty sure the alarm system is the problem. I heard a clicking sound around that red light when I got in. Almost sounded like my blinker was on. Then noticed my battery was dead. Thanks for the post should help as I wrestle mine out!

 

It has been a while since I was under there but I do not believe it was directly connected to the ignition. There are two connections under the steering column and I think one of those was to the ignition.

Correction; I dug through the FSM a bit and I found what I believe are the connection wires under the steering column, they look to be for the air bag and/or transponder chip. I didn’t find the blue and white diode wire yet but there is an ignition module behind that left kick panel.

I’ll take a look if I can later today, I’m not around my truck at the moment. I can try to compare it to the FSM wiring diagrams, if I can find that too haha.

When were you planning to dive into it?

 

It was a success when I did it, large in part to your post thank you! All was good when I fired back up after removing the security system and splicing that wire. I had one major mishap. When trying to remove this wire from the ignition switch I was prying a little bit blind didn't have a clear view and I ripped it out completely. Copper fittings, springs, and ball bearings from the ignition switch went everywhere. Slight panic but was somehow able to piece it all back together and everything is fine. The segments in the ignition switch aren't as defined now, it's a little loose. But all is good. So use caution anyone taking this on. Remove that clip carefully!

 

I’m glad you were able to get that all out and that this was helpful!
Sounds like I would have panicked for a minute too if all that stuff dumped everywhere
Good job on reassembling that too, sounds a bit tedious.

I’ll drop this information into the OP for people in the future.

 

Thank you so much for posting this, this god damn thing has been driving me crazy, I'll be ripping it out once the temps warm up.