kevboost7

What is the SMJ connector?

yes wtf, its never ending i swear. im literally losing hair

Took the car out for a drive. Good news - both headlights are still on. Bad news - my fuel gauge is pinned in the full position.

After all the troubleshooting, the only thing i can think of that would cause it is the headlamp relay. Could that have gone bad and caused the short?

I checked, i dont think it was the indicator stalk. The problem just magically fixed itself though.

The connector led to nowhere, are you talking about which wires it was spliced into?

I'm about to go nuts. I tore apart the interior dash to trace back the headlamp wire to see if anything looked strange.. but nothing... everything looked perfect in the interior. I reluctantly grabbed my floor jack to jack up the car, removed the wheel, and I checked under the inner guard linings, but everything looked just fine.. There wasn't anything super obvious that was melted or bare wire touching metal. Everything was wrapped in the factory electrical shroud. If the headlamp wire was shorted somewhere inside the factory electrical shroud, i would have to unwrap the entire 3 inch thick cord from the drivers seat all the way to the fuse box in the engine bay to find the damn short. I took a break and sat down to contemplate life and i wondered if its the relay. So i took the headlamp relay out and was googling how they work, but i couldn't find too much info on the 6-pin. After about 10 minutes, i checked the headlamp socket to see if it was still being shorted to ground, and miraculously, it wasn't. I plugged everything back up and the headlamp is working now. I just have to put the interior back together. but this part is the worst part, because i have no idea what i did that fixed it. I wiggled some wires around all over and now the short is gone.. Could it have been a bad relay?

I took apart the dash and found this strange 2 pin connector. it dosen't seem like its factory or oem, any clue on why someone would add it and where it might have been connected too?

I did read your post, a few times actually. Done. Followed this step. [Negative probe should be on the cars chassis. Positive on the wire.] Did this partially.. now that im reading this over, i only unplugged the LED lights. [Start as said above by unplugging everything (unplug the lights, and switches.] When you are talking about the switch, you're talking about the knob thing on the right side in the drivers seat right? If so, i need to take that apart? [Now at the switch, there is a wire from the fuse, to the switch, so out your positive on that terminal. It should read open circuit. If it reads something, especially a stupid low value, the short is somewhere between the fuse and the switch.] At this point are you referring to the connector by the headlights? [If that's fine, now put the positive probe on the wire that goes to the headlight (at the switch plug). If it reads stupid low, the fault is from the switch, to the headlight.] Did this. I can confirm that the LED lights aren't the issue [Another quick test, is take the whole LED light setup from the left, and plug it into the right side, does it still blow the fuse? If you put the right hand side led light setup on the left hand side wiring, does the left hand side wiring now blow? If the blowing fuse swaps from right to left doing this, your LED lights are the issue.]

I figured out what’s wrong. It’s something to do with the high beam wire short circuiting. When I measure the continuity with a multimeter on the headlight socket connector it gives me a continuous beeping noise when I put it on the ground socket and also on the high beam socket. On the passenger side of the car (working side), it’s only beeping when the probe is on the ground socket. Which makes sense. So that means it has something to do with the high beam power supply for the drivers side. How do I trace that? Is it the turn signal lever malfunctioning? The one that also controls the high beam and low beams.

Hey guys, I'm reviving an old post but I'm finally getting around to working on this now. I removed the battery to get a better look at the wires and i traced the wires from the headlight to the fuse box in the engine bay, but the wiring looks fine? The wiring for the R/H headlight is 3 wires and then is bundled up with the large diameter wire that goes underneath the fuse box. I didn't take it apart yet. I know you said that its a short circuit somewhere between the fuse box and the headlight. But could it be the headlight switch on the dash? Also, i pulled out my multi-meter and set it on the Ohms, but i'm not sure where to put the negative probe and the positive probe.

Not my proudest moment, but about 6 years ago, i did an oil change on my ex-gf's car while drunk. It was a Toyota Rav4 so they had a weird oil filter holder device that's not the standard oil filter. I went to start up the car and drove it from the driveway to the parking spot and i turned around to see the biggest oil spill i ever seen. It didn't end up being a problem because i filled the oil back up and tightened the filter properly, but after that experience i never worked on my cars drunk.

Looking back, I’m pretty sure I over-torqued the magnetic drain plug because I was trying to fully crush the copper washer. In hindsight, I definitely should’ve used a torque wrench. Either way, I ended up switching to a regular drain plug so I don’t have to deal with this kind of issue again. Big thanks to everyone on the forum for your support—I actually talk about you guys to my friends and coworkers

Update: I got the magnet out. I bought 3 different flexible magnetic reach tools, but none of them worked. The magnet on the tip was all less than 2lbs of force, so i had to buy a special cylindrical magnet that had a pull force of 9lbs. The magnet finally came in the mail yesterday, so i got under the car to get to work. The super strong magnet isn't that long, so i only have about 1 finger pinch lengths to hold it. I was so scared when i was going in the hole, that the 9lb magnet would just fly away inside the oil pan never to be seen again, but i had my butt cheeks clenched and finger gripped on that thing so tight, i managed to get it to suck the other magnet out. It was a victory for me last night.

Are you trolling me