A new one! Camry wiring problem (NMC)

Hello,

It's not a Miata, but it is a new problem that I have not seen before,
so I thought that I would give it a shot here along with the Toyota
newsgroup.

I am working on a 1994 Camry, 4 cylinder with auto transmission, 167,000
miles.

The exterior lights warning on the dash came on and I quickly traced it
to a break in one of the wires that comes through the trunk opening at
the hinge on the driver side, (U.S. models).

I spliced in a new piece of wire, wrapped it all up, and it was OK for
about a year.
Now the light is back on, and I can see where the wiring has been
stressed and abraded from rubbing against the metal piece that is part
of the gasket and is exposed as it wears out.

I went ahead and spliced in a good length of wire for all 4 of them,
with the idea of putting a plastic strip around everything after
heat-shrinking the new connections, and then repairingf or replacing the
trunk gasket that is cutting on the wires.

The problem now, is that the light is till on, and now the reverse light
is coming on when I hit the brake. The brake lights still operate
properly and the reverse back-up lights do not come on.

The only parts of the wiring that I have not replaced or checked is a
very hard area to get to with an electric line break sensor.

I have checked the fuses and they look fine and have checked my splice
connections and everything looks tight, though not yet sealed up except
with electrical tape which I planned to replace with heat-shrink units
for elctrical wiring..

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Pat

pws > wrote:

> The exterior lights warning on the dash came on and I quickly
> traced it to a break in one of the wires that comes through the
> trunk opening at the hinge on the driver side, (U.S. models).
>
> I spliced in a new piece of wire, wrapped it all up, and it was OK
> for about a year.
> Now the light is back on, and I can see where the wiring has been
> stressed and abraded from rubbing against the metal piece that is
> part of the gasket and is exposed as it wears out.
>
> I went ahead and spliced in a good length of wire for all 4 of
> them, with the idea of putting a plastic strip around everything
> after heat-shrinking the new connections, and then repairingf or
> replacing the trunk gasket that is cutting on the wires.
>
> The problem now, is that the light is till on, and now the reverse
> light is coming on when I hit the brake. The brake lights still
> operate properly and the reverse back-up lights do not come on.

Looks like a short in the circuit, maybe? You need to go back over
what you did.



--
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XS11E wrote:

> Looks like a short in the circuit, maybe? You need to go back over
> what you did.

Durn, I had better get back out in that nasty 75 degree's of sunshine.

We almost got a Spring here this year. I'm not sure that has ever
happened before.

Perfect day for a drive, but I can't drive the Miata until my new
Hankook tires show up, so I may as well get some work done before the
heat wave arrives.

Sticky performance tires. It has been a while. This will be most excellent.

Thanks, I will go take a look at my mangled wiring job. I hate dealing
with electronics. Give me a shock or brake job instead any day. :-)

Pat

pws > wrote:

> Durn, I had better get back out in that nasty 75 degree's of
> sunshine.

Ditto, took advantage of the perfect weather to put the top down and
putt to the PO to send the IRA and the Arizona Department of Revenue
their pound of flesh.

And I discovered a bug. My top latches don't latch properly, when I
want to unlatch the top I don't have to push the little button to
unlock the latch which is a bit of a safety hazzard.

For all I know, it's been like this forever, I never tried to open a
latch w/o pushing the button before but it looks like I'm off to
miata.net to see if I can figure out what the problem might be and how
to fix it.

When the latch is closed, I can see a gap between the back of the latch
and the little tab on the lock button. The lock button doesn't work
with the top released, either.

I sure hope this isn't going to cost me new latches or some such....


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XS11E > wrote:

> And I discovered a bug. My top latches don't latch properly, when
> I want to unlatch the top I don't have to push the little button
> to unlock the latch which is a bit of a safety hazzard.
>
> For all I know, it's been like this forever, I never tried to open
> a latch w/o pushing the button before but it looks like I'm off to
> miata.net to see if I can figure out what the problem might be and
> how to fix it.

Found it!

http://www.miata.net/garage/top_latch/index.html

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In article >,
pws > wrote:

> I have checked the fuses and they look fine and have checked my splice
> connections and everything looks tight, though not yet sealed up except
> with electrical tape which I planned to replace with heat-shrink units
> for elctrical wiring..
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Pat

Any dual filament lamps? Sometimes a filament can break and bridge
across to the other filament. Depending on the car, strange electrical
things can result.

--Geary

You are correct, there is quite a bit about this on Miata.net
My experience with my 99 was that the factory latches supplied on the 99
were defective.
Basically, the fault was due to an improperly drilled set of holes that are
used to hold a silver shaft. This shaft supports the plastic latch.
The second common problem with the latches is that there should be an
"overcenter" action that causes the latch to more or less tend to stay
closed,
instead of opening when it just barely touched or subjected to strong
vibration or bumps. This places all the "stay closed" load on the plastic
latch
when the overcenter action does not function properly.

There are some "fixes" on miata.net that help avoid latch replacement and
the resulting cost.


"XS11E" > wrote in message
. ..
> XS11E > wrote:
>
>> And I discovered a bug. My top latches don't latch properly, when
>> I want to unlatch the top I don't have to push the little button
>> to unlock the latch which is a bit of a safety hazzard.
>>
>> For all I know, it's been like this forever, I never tried to open
>> a latch w/o pushing the button before but it looks like I'm off to
>> miata.net to see if I can figure out what the problem might be and
>> how to fix it.
>
> Found it!
>
> http://www.miata.net/garage/top_latch/index.html
>
> --
> XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
> The Usenet Improvement Project:
> http://improve-usenet.org

"Chuck" > wrote:

> The second common problem with the latches is that there should be
> an "overcenter" action that causes the latch to more or less tend
> to stay closed

Not mine, they are very tight when latched, they do seem to go
substantially over center.

This is my problem:

>> http://www.miata.net/garage/top_latch/index.html

I may do nothing since the latches seem to have no tendency to unlatch
w/o some force being applied.


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"The problem now... the reverse light is coming on when I hit the brake. The
brake lights still operate
properly and the reverse back-up lights do not come on."

perhaps stating the obvious... but it sounds like the backup lights were
spliced into the common of the brake lights...
follow the leads from the backup lights back to your splice.
also, there is a site called toyotanation.com that has an actve user forums
that might help, but nothing jumped out about electrical problems with the
'94 camry.

ps. great post about the nb manifolds.

"pws" > wrote in message
...
> Hello,
>
> It's not a Miata, but it is a new problem that I have not seen before, so
> I thought that I would give it a shot here along with the Toyota
> newsgroup.
>
> I am working on a 1994 Camry, 4 cylinder with auto transmission, 167,000
> miles.
>
> The exterior lights warning on the dash came on and I quickly traced it to
> a break in one of the wires that comes through the trunk opening at the
> hinge on the driver side, (U.S. models).
>
> I spliced in a new piece of wire, wrapped it all up, and it was OK for
> about a year.
> Now the light is back on, and I can see where the wiring has been stressed
> and abraded from rubbing against the metal piece that is part of the
> gasket and is exposed as it wears out.
>
> I went ahead and spliced in a good length of wire for all 4 of them, with
> the idea of putting a plastic strip around everything after heat-shrinking
> the new connections, and then repairingf or replacing the trunk gasket
> that is cutting on the wires.
>
> The problem now, is that the light is till on, and now the reverse light
> is coming on when I hit the brake. The brake lights still operate properly
> and the reverse back-up lights do not come on.
>
> The only parts of the wiring that I have not replaced or checked is a very
> hard area to get to with an electric line break sensor.
>
> I have checked the fuses and they look fine and have checked my splice
> connections and everything looks tight, though not yet sealed up except
> with electrical tape which I planned to replace with heat-shrink units for
> elctrical wiring..
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Pat

Christopher Muto wrote:
> "The problem now... the reverse light is coming on when I hit the brake. The
> brake lights still operate
> properly and the reverse back-up lights do not come on."
>
> perhaps stating the obvious... but it sounds like the backup lights were
> spliced into the common of the brake lights...
> follow the leads from the backup lights back to your splice.
> also, there is a site called toyotanation.com that has an actve user forums
> that might help, but nothing jumped out about electrical problems with the
> '94 camry.
>
> ps. great post about the nb manifolds.


Strange results, I fixed one wire, but I think that I broke another one
inside the insulation while doing that. The wire pulled apart with only
the plastic giving any resistance, it was probably just making contact
before I messed with the other part of the wire set.

I finally decided that all of the wiring in that area looked like a
problem waiting to happen again, so I chopped out the entire 4-wire set
that was under stress from the trunk hinge operation, replaced them with
new, longer ones, and everything is back to normal.

Just need to wrap it all back up now.

Thanks all for the help on this aging OTM!

Pat