Steering wheel swap

I’m wondering if the 2004-2006 SR5 standard steering wheel can be swapped out for the Limited steering wheel with the onboard radio controls?

Does anyone know if it is pre-wired for this sort of swap or what I’d be looking for if it was?

running out of easy upgrades for my SR5

 

I’m tempted to move ahead as I found the fancy wheel for $100 on a salvage site… but I’m also hesitant because that’s a lot of money if I’m wrong

it’d be entirely for the swag to help complete the Limited Imposter look of my SR5, but yeah… I wouldn’t even know how to check for the wiring compatibility

 

Yes, the wheels are interchangeable.

To know if the wiring is completely there, you could check your radio connectors to see if the wires for the steering wheel controls are pinned. If yes, then your clock spring probably has them too. If no, you'll need a newer clock spring and to add 3 wires to your radio connector.


Here's what mine looked like WITH the radio controls pre-wired:

 

Chances are with an '04 it will be pre-wired. But at least one user on here with an '03 has confirmed their '03 wasn't pre-wired. I have it stuck in my head '05 and '06 are pre-wired. I think this is one of those ways where probing is the only way you'll know, and @assassin10000 has provided the best info you're gonna find.

 

@assassin10000

Silly question, where is that plug you are holding/showing located? I can take a look for it tomorrow

 

Thank you all so very much, this site is simply fantastic. I feel like I started out as someone that knew absolutely nothing and now… now I’m someone that kind of knows a couple of things somewhat. It’s awesome

 

It plugs into the back of the radio.

 

Rampage we have the same truck, the 04 DC mutant. I will be following your threads closely. From a fellow who knew nothing and now knows a little bit about only a couple things somewhat.

 

@assassin10000

thank you, I’ll delve back there tomorrow. I have an aftermarket radio though, but I’ll see what I see and snap a pic

 

@DarkMint

it’s been exciting looking into and starting all these side projects for sure. Some pending victories and some that aren’t turning out as I’d hoped (but can likely still be done another way)

assassin10000 providing that information is awesome and will potentially be more helpful to you than me given my Panasonic deck, but I’ll be looking myself anyway since I can’t remember exactly how it was all set up, but it’s really easy to get back there at least

that center bezel is really easy to remove if you haven’t ever done so (disregard if you have)



Aim the 2 vents up and you’ll see a screw at the top of each one

pull the left and right dials straight out to expose the other 2 screws

I’m 99% sure that there isn’t a 5th screw anywhere, but the golden rule applies: if it’s not budge’n then there’s one more somewhere

the whole assembly should pop straight out without much fuss, but be careful as there will be things plugged in

you’ll then see the screws holding the radio in; there should be 4 of them and should be easy to tell which go to the radio

But yeah, I’ll be checking as well since mine may just be the OEM plug with an adaptor, but I just can’t remember

 

One thing to consider is if you purchase the wheel for $100 and it doesn't fit, you can likely make 80-100% of your money back reselling it...
this should be the motivation you need

 

The place that has the wheel is in NY while I am in WA, so by NY law they can’t sell it with the airbag still inside. They would remove it and send the wheel and cover, then I’d have to take my wheel off, put my airbag in the new wheel and put it all back together

which it sounds like I’d have to effectively do anyway because of the connections involved

So I just watched a steering wheel removal video online (for a 2006, so it should be the same/similar to a 2004), and wow… while it seems easy-ish, it still feels way more involved than I am ready for…

I’m gonna ask a couple local places that would actually know what they are doing. I’m not above paying someone else for their experience. I may be cheap at times with certain things, but I know my limits and this might be a little beyond mine

But first I need to check behind that radio like @assassin10000 said to do. No point ordering a wheel if I’m not actually wired for it

 

5 screws…

there are 5 screws to take out from the bezel. The 5th one is behind the middle dial

 

Alright, so update #2

Mine has 2 sets of wires

this is where they come from



Of the two, this is the one that looks a lot like what @assassin10000 posted as reference…




it doesn’t appear to look ~exactly~ the same, but that could just be the angle I’m looking?

 

As I mentioned though, I replaced my stock radio with a display screen for a backup camera… so this is what the other end of the bundles looks like (it looks kinda ugly AF to my eyes, but it works and I wasn’t confident enough to do it myself)

 

From my seat, it does not appear you are wired for steering wheel controls. The bigger connector appears to be a 10 pin connector(R 2) which matches up color wise to what the Electrical Wiring Diagram for a 2004 shows. The smaller connector appears to be a 6 pin connector(R 1). What is hard to determine from that pic on the 6 pin is how many wires and clearly what their color is.

R 1 is red circle and circled connectors
R 2 is rectangle and rectangle connectors






If need be, you can download the 2004 EWD(electrical wiring diagram) from the below thread in case you or an installer might need it....courtesy of @RainMan_PNW !

Ultimate Wiring Diagrams Collection | Toyota Tundra Forum (tundras.com)

 

@BubbaW

I’ll try and take it apart again tomorrow before work and get a few better pics of that plug. It’s definitely an experience figuring all this stuff out. Even if it turns out that I'm not wired for it, it’s still been interesting

 

@5N0W808

Are you talking about the screws that hold the center bezel in? If they are indeed missing, which thankfully they are all really easy to see if they are there, then you should be able to either get the screws for ~fairly~ cheap through Toyota or at least find out what size screws they are

just pull off your 3 dials and see if there are any screws there, or aim your vents up and look at the top of the housing. They are all really easy to spot if any of them are there

if even one is there then you can prolly find a usable one at a good hardward store

 

You paid someone to put in your radio and they used wire nuts? Guess it's at least better than electrical tape.
You may need to dig around in the radio cavity somewhere and see if theres any other plugs floating around. The two plugs you have in there already are just the standard early Toyota style radio hook ups.

Toyota used that style screw in just about every Toyota made in the 90's and early 2000's. Go to a junkyard and get some out of a mid 90's Camry.

 

@NickB_01TRD

kind of… the radio was installed by a buddy of mine about 2 years ago that had better understanding of wiring than I do 0_-

that’s what I get for the $20 special, but it works and my backup camera works so it was well worth it =^__^=

I’ll see if there is anything else floating around in there but also I’ll get better pics of those 2 bundles

If those were the connections that went to the stock stereo then I can’t imagine that there is a second set squirreled away but I’ll check

hopefully a better angle will make for a more conclusive answer

 

It appears you may have had the smaller factory in dash amp that was removed for radio install which would make sense except you have a double cab. The only thing is that I thought they stopped doing that style amp in 04 and switched to the one under the back seat somewhere. Maybe there never was an amp and you have the basic system.
I have an AC and it had the amp behind the HVAC controls. Never messed with a DC so I'm just throwing out some ideas.

 

@NickB_01TRD

Throwing out ideas is appreciated for sure. Yeah, you’d think I’d remember for sure the stock radio I had, but I’m on my 3rd unit

I THINK that this was the original I had around 2010 or 2011… it looks familiar anyway



Now I’ve got a display screen that takes up the whole cavity.

I can’t say that I’ve ever seen an amp anywhere under the back seats so either it’s still in the front somewhere or I never had one or something else

But yeah, I think my first next step is open that area up again, take better pics and see what people recognize here because I’m hopeless on my own

technically if I were ultra brazen I’d take my steering wheel apart/off and see what plugs are NOT hooked up to anything under there. If I saw zero unused plugs/wire clusters, then I’d imagine I’m not set up for wheel controlled audio… but if there was an unused plug that looked anything like what @assassin10000 posted, then that would be at least an indicator of some sort

 

Also hopefully some others will chime in during the more reasonable hours of the day. You may try searching around in just the 1st gen section for threads about radio stuff. There's been a lot discussed previously about radios and such.

Also if you hit the quote button on the bottom right of the post you want to reply to it makes things a bit easier to keep up with.

 

IF that is the one, that does match with what was originally installed and matches what the 04 Brochure shows for Standard Features(Toyota A51804)

 

Looks like you had the "6 speaker" option, which did not include wiring for steering wheel controls.

You'd have different shaped connectors and 3 different color wires for the radio controls.

 

good to know. Not sure if that’s something that a wiring harness swap could fix, but I’m also extremely sure that it is something that isn’t at all worth the trouble to attempt in my case

I imagine it would be extremely pricey to take him in to a place to do such wiring work as well

I’m glad I didn’t blindly drop that money

 

I have an 05 SR5 double cab that was not wired for steering wheel controls. It's an amazing convenience that I really missed from newer vehicles. I use them all the time and rarely reach over to the stereo. I added them using eBay parts and wrote about it here: https://www.tundras.com/threads/200...pic-heavy-little-ot.75017/page-4#post-2226710



Then I took the steering wheel to the next level with a nice leather wrap from Amazon: https://www.tundras.com/threads/200...pic-heavy-little-ot.75017/page-6#post-2502116



Happy to help if you decide to tackle it and have any Qs.

 

You sure about that? I had 6 speaker option on mine, I guess, with amp (non-JBL), and I have steering wheel controls.

 

There seem to be a number of differences in these years/configs… for instance, according to Napa and Toyota, my truck takes a cube-shaped relay for the fog lights (didn’t have them from factory, but the wiring was mostly all the… but the slot for that relay, which is on the back of the fuse box in the cab, is a narrow-ish rectangle… a lot of others’ fog light relay is under the hood, or so I’ve heard

either way I am planning to take better pics of my harness to the back of the radio because the one I posted before doesn’t really show anything definitive

 

He's got the odd ball '04 chassis. You have an '06 which is different afaik.