yarddogg77 Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 I'm having a few issues and would like some brainstorming help. First a little history. I just got my car back together after tearing it down and painting the engine bay among other things. I had everything out of the engine bay and the dash was out. I got it all put back together without the dash in and it seemed to be running great except for a little steam from the exhaust which wasn't there before. Head gasket, fine, but it isn't bad enough to inhibit it from idling in my driveway and messing around with other things. Then I installed the dash, started it and warmed it again checking gauges and all that. It decides it doesn't want to rev past idle anymore out of nowhere. Start it again when cold and it revs fine, warms up and won't rev again. I spent all day checking all the sensors that run the engine. They all test fine except maybe the throttle position sensor, but it still isn't terrible. The idle does still need to be set and the sensor is working alright. I have all new EV1 connectors I still need to install but it all tested fine through the ECU harness. Stumped. #2 I hooked up my headlight switch, turned on the headlights and the whole circuit started to smoke. I took the switch back out and it all tested fine, then I cleaned it anyway. The PO had some wire which appeared to be grounding the 2 headlights together which made no sense at all to me. I can't see what it could have accomplished but it was working fine before I did away with that wire. What could that wire have accomplished and what is the real underlying problem? If I have a positive short grounding out somewhere which is probably why it is smoking, then why would that wire help anything? Stumped. Where is the headlight relay? #3 Power steering problem. I replaced the seals in the rack and pinion and am reasonably sure I didn't get any foreign material inside. I am a clean freak with internal work and I know I assembled it correct. However I did use the wrong fluid in the system (power steering fluid) which is too thick. When I first started the car back up, the pump started to heat up. So I flushed it all out and got the Dextron 3 in there. It still doesn't want to bleed and the pump still heats up. Do you think I destroyed the pump? Or do you think material may have entered the lines at some point and clogged it up? I must seem like an idiot, but I've never had such a hard time working on anything before. I'm getting a bit disgusted with this car and all the Gremlins I'm finding. It keeps breaking before it leaves the driveway. I need this thing to drive soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarddogg77 Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 (edited) I found out the headlight short is worse than I thought. It's the red and blue wire, which spiders out into everything! I'm gonna have to tear this whole car apart to find the short, literally. Does anyone know of any common place where this circuit may have shorted out? I'm looking for a place to start. Maybe it's a component that burns out frequently? I've unplugged my main engine harness that supplies all the lights in the front of the car and the circuit is still shorted. Does anyone know of a harness connector that supplies all the rear lights? If I find that I can isolate it to under the dash, or to the rear of the car. Edited February 4, 2012 by yarddogg77 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewZed Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Check the FSM, or one of the wiring diagrams for your year and test at the connectors. There's one by the fuse-box. The FSM shows the color codes for the connectors. You could also test at the fusible link. Disconnect at the connector and the fusible link and check for short in each segment. You can at least narrow it down to a smaller area. You can also get a better idea of what the PO was trying to do. By the way, "Gremlins" is not a good title to draw eyes to your issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarddogg77 Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 (edited) Check the FSM, or one of the wiring diagrams for your year and test at the connectors. There's one by the fuse-box. The FSM shows the color codes for the connectors. You could also test at the fusible link. Disconnect at the connector and the fusible link and check for short in each segment. You can at least narrow it down to a smaller area. You can also get a better idea of what the PO was trying to do. By the way, "Gremlins" is not a good title to draw eyes to your issues. I've replaced the fusible links with Mini-ANL style fuses so there is now one thick power wire feeding all the positives to the car. This red and blues wire feeds so many components and systems that if I test it from the end of the circuit the short could still be anywhere. I'm probably gonna take my dash back out and start at the switch. I'm pretty sure that there is no main harness connector that connects the tail lights so I'm screwed there. I wanted to pull all my interior and check out all the wiring anyway. Guess I'll just do that. Gremlins are scary. Edited February 4, 2012 by yarddogg77 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewZed Posted February 4, 2012 Share Posted February 4, 2012 Take the fuses out. Disconnect the connection by the fuse box. Then test the headlight circuit wires at each on of the disconnections for continuity to ground. For example, if you disconnect the connection by the fuse box, or take fuses out, and get a short to ground at the power wire to the headlight switch, then the short is between those two points. If you don't then you can look elsewhere. Break the big circuit, from the battery to the headlights, in to small pieces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarddogg77 Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 (edited) Making progress. I unhooked the main engine wiring harness leading to the headlights. I hooked up my switch and turned on the lights. The rear lights are all working great and the wire isn't heating up at all. The short is in the engine harness somewhere in the front of the car. This sucks because I already went through all that. I must have missed something. The trouble with checking continuity through the ground. Is if the hot circuit is already grounded, then I accomplish nothing. That red and blue wire spiders through factory crimps. So all the hots are connected, know what I mean? If I try to test continuity from positive to ground, all it does is complete the circuit and shows me it's good. Wait a second, now I get it. You're right. Edited February 4, 2012 by yarddogg77 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarddogg77 Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 Headlights are fixed. The abd part is I don't know how. There's a bare spot somewhere and I'm trying to track it down. It became fixed when I started messing around in the engine bay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewZed Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Other clues to your problem are that you had smoking wires but the fuses did not blow. I would focus on the new fuse setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarddogg77 Posted February 5, 2012 Author Share Posted February 5, 2012 Those fuses are to replace my factory fusible links coming right off the battery, they feed the ignition, then on to the factory fuse box on the passenger side under the dash. If anything, one of those should have blown. I'll have to check to see if the PO swapped out a larger one cause it kept blowing. I'd bet on it. I did find one bare wire, but after testing, I don't think it had anything to do with the lighting system. It wasn't the color of the one I was hunting anyway. I won't stop until I find the real cause of that short cause it's bound to happen again. At least I know I won't have to dig to deep now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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