Need help wiring a wig wag.

There's a button on the centre console that makes the indicators flash on and off, over here we call it "the hazards" it may have another name in america.

 

^ there is a thread with wiring that produces at least the flashing of the side markers. I figured it would be pretty easy to wire in a relay that would cause the alternating flashing. The only thing I could figure out was how to keep the side marker illuminated while in the parking position.

p.s. you must be a railroad enthusiast, yes?

 

I finally found that thread. Have to look through it again and get re-acquainted.

 

This is only easy to do with a relay if you leave the parking lights (or head lights) on all the time. The parking lights would be on, then you install a relay to cut the power to them when the blinker is on. In that case the blinker is on and the parking lights are off, then the blinker goes off, the relay trips, and the parking lights go back on. Look through the thread mentioned above and I believe it tells you how to do this.

However, if you don't leave the parking lights on all the time, then it becomes much more difficult as you would need to supply power to the parking lights when the blinkers are off... but the problem is you don't know if the blinkers are off because it's between blinks or if they're off because you're not turning. You'd need to create a circuit that watches for the blinkers to blink and turns on the parking lights in between blinks, then when the blinking stops it would stop powering the parking lights.

 

Peter,
The relay (one for each side) will be marked with a NC and NO as well as a common and a pair of coil terminals.
The way I use the wig wag is to run the positive lead of the "parking lamp" to the common terminal on the relay and the NC (normaly closed) to the lamp. This of course requires cutting this wire and will work only when this light is on i.e. head lamps or parking lamps are on. The turn signal positive (+) lead can be tapped into using a "quick tap" without cutting and will need to attach to one side of the coil on the relay and the other side of the coil would be grounded to the body via any existing grounded screw or an new self tapping screw. The NO or (normally open) is not used, just insulate it if necessary to protect from going to ground. In essence when the turn signal is lit the relay breaks the power to the parking lamp or side marker in my case, which by the way actually is on at the same time as the parking lamp anyway though on a seperate wire. As the turn signal lamp goes off the parking or marker goes on providing they were on with the head lamps etc. A second routine that would cause a wig wag even with the parking lamp turned off would require a second relay to the circuit on each side to provide power to the bulb when the turn signal turns on. This would not be a simple or cheap setup because the nature of the turn signal circuit would require a delay off relay to provide the power to the parking lamp circuit. This just would not be worth the cost, well over $70 per relay. Oem delay circuits like those used by GM are probably controlled via an existing processor.
Hope this clears this up for you. If you need to determine which wire is the hot wire use a cheap 12v lamp style tester which can pierce the insulation without cutting the wire first. Just make sure the other end of the tester is well grounded and the bulb circuit is on or flashing I think the solid color wires are the hot wires but its too cold here to go out and look!

Rich Willer

 

This is correct. In my experience Toyota is very consistant about using white with black for the ground wire.

It wouldn't hurt to check just to be perfectly safe if you can do so easily, but if not I'm quite certain of the above.