Krisndan Posted June 5, 2012 Share Posted June 5, 2012 Well, I thought I had the dang thing fixed after taking apart the passenger door switch and replacing a broken spring. No luck there, so after some more picking, pulling, and circuit testing, the culprit turned out to be a broken (but still barely connected) connector tab at the relay under the dash. All this time I was looking for an exposed wire or faulty switch, and all along it was a simple tab, broken right at the contact point with the wire, that I almost missed and reconnected none the wiser! The demons have been purged! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krisndan Posted June 14, 2012 Author Share Posted June 14, 2012 Well, I thought I had the dang thing fixed after taking apart the passenger door switch and replacing a broken spring. No luck there, so after some more picking, pulling, and circuit testing, the culprit turned out to be a broken (but still barely connected) connector tab at the relay under the dash. All this time I was looking for an exposed wire or faulty switch, and all along it was a simple tab, broken right at the contact point with the wire, that I almost missed and reconnected none the wiser! The demons have been purged! *clarification* Just to put this to rest, I bungled the diagnosis here: The connector tab that went bad was to the A/C relay, which SEEMED to solve the problem at the time. That was indeed a problem, but ended up fixing the power problem to the fan (a silver lining). At the time, I was also tinkering with the dome light. I had reconnected the contacts and taped it up, thinking it was fine and that the A/C relay tab was tripping something and causing the buzzer to go off. The FSM notes that the buzzer is also tied to the ignition and charging system, so I was thinking that the short at the relay was causing it to go off. When the thing started going off again (with the key haning on the wall) AFTER fixing the broken tab, I was ready to rip out the wires and set them on fire. The other angle to this is that sometime before I picked the car up, the engine room harness had been replaced, so I really had no idea what kind of adjustments had been made to it or to the interior harness where there have been some creative splices done for speakers and for using the radio without the key. These were the obvious changes made to the wiring, but there are a handful of other splices to grounds and contacts that I noticed, as well as some re-wrapped harness sections. Basically, there could have been a problem anywhere along any of the harnesses (which was what made me want to torch them all and start over). Thankfully for my wallet and stress levels, I was able to locate the problem when I went back to the dome light. One of the connectors had suffered some burning, and must have fouled the contact points just enough to work SOMETIMES without burning up the fuse on the block and tripping the buzzer. I say sometimes, because sometimes it would blow the fuse too, explaining why when it didn't right away after taking care of the relay tab, I didn't ask any questions and called it solved. Obviously it was a short-lived solution, so back to the only other possibility: dome light again. Cleaning out the contacts, using some pliers to tighten them up, and re-taping the back for extra insulation seemed to have solved the problem nicely (I had already taken out, cleaned, and reassembled the door switches on both sides). Those of you who have read this far may want to keep that dome light in mind if the same problem arises. The contacts are VERY close to the roof when installed and could possibly ground out, especially if you use a little too much push when turning on the push switch light or if the dome light has a little bit of play in its housing... Anyway, problem solved (again), this time for real! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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