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Maintenance & Repair Electronic Gremlins: Electrical Problems That Are Driving You Crazy
1085 messages, Last post on Oct 29, 2009 at 11:41 AM
You are in the Maintenance & Repair Forum. Your Host is mr_shiftright
| sour grounds are often a point of failure that affect multiple systems. unfortunately, the ground point for systems F, Q, X, Y, and AA7 are often some distance away from any logical point the circuits would go to. fixing them is pretty easy, remove the nut and associated spade lugs and lock/toothed washers, clean up any oxidation or corrosion or reterminate the wire involved and replace the hardware, coat all parts lightly with grease, and reassemble tightly. finding them is not easy without a manual -- even the Haynes/Chilton series will often have enough of an electrical diagram to find the most likely grounding point. I really marked up and dirtied the manuals for my Mopars, Buick, and Ranger. | |
| I have a 1988 Acura Integra LS. The brakes lights have shorted out or something and won't turn off. This is causing the battery to rundown very fast. I've the pulled the fuse and it uses less than 25ma so the brake light seems to be the only problem. Any ideas where I should go from here? | |
| Start by checking the brake light switch adjustment. It's usually on the brake pedal support bracket. The plunger should be fully depressed when the pedal's in the released position. | |
| Hey, that was the cause of the problem. There were some broken plastic-like pieces lying around under the brake pedal. There is also a hole in the brake pedal where it would have made contact with the plunger. Is this piece easily replaceable and does it need to be adjusted to the correct position? Thanks a lot everyone. | |
| My 98 GS Eclipse has a weird problem. The brake lights turn on when the temp gets cold. When the car warms up after a day of driving.. the light turns off. I brought it to the dealer and he said I needed new brake pads. I changed the pads, the problem went away for a month and came back. The brake fluid is fine, emergency brake is not on, new pads.. What is the problem? My friend has a 97 Eclipse Spyder and he has the same problem. So I know it's more than a coincidence. I hate the dealerships and my car is out of warranty. Any suggestions? | |
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You mean the brake warning light on the dash, or the brake lights themselves? If it's the light on the dash, I would suspect the little level indicator on top of the master cylinder reservoir. It sounds like it's getting stuck. Other than that, maybe some wear sensor is misreading. You might try disconnecting the level sensor and see if the light goes out. |
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I was trying to check my cigarette lighter with a cheap 'prod' tester when i accidently grounded it out. i heard a fuse snap (rather loud i thought). My radio,lights & horn went out, it would turn over but would not start. Some other electrics work ie. windshield wipers and interior lights, which i unfotunately left on over-night. now the battery is dead. i pulled most fuses for components that were not working, they checked-out ok. this is a '93 S-10 Blazer, 4X4,automatic. HELP!!! |
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Hmm....your truck may have a "fusible link" that runs in a circuit coming right off your positive terminal on your battery. It's been a while since I looked at an S-10 but maybe that's the problem. Also, there are sometimes additional in-line fuses on cars that don't run through the fuse box. Maybe one of the techs who drop in here can offer further suggestions.
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| I agree that it sounds like one of your fusible links has burned out. | |
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Here's a real puzzler. I have a *very* intermittent problem with my 1986 Pontiac Parisienne Safari which appears to be electrical in nature. It hasn't happened in months, but it seems like just when I think it's fixed itself, it happens again. The problem is this: When it's cold out (below 50 degrees, usually) and I start the car up for the first time in the morning after it's been sitting for at least 12 hours or so, it will seem to run fine at idle. But when I put it in Drive or Reverse and start moving, the engine speed will seem to drop way way down, the battery light will start flashing, and the car will stall out as soon as I give it gas. Sometimes it stalls almost immediately after I shift out of Park, other times it will seem fine until I give it gas trying to pull out of an intersection, and then it will do this power loss/battery light/stall routine. It will always restart immediately after the stall, but sometimes it will stall 2 or 3 times in a row. This absolutely only ever happens during the first two minutes of driving on cold mornings. Nothing like it has ever happened under any other circumstances. The distributor cap and plug wires are only a year old, and the plugs looked good last time I checked. The thing is, just before it stalls, the car behaves as though there is a fuel delivery problem (hesitation, no power), but the battery light coming on makes me think otherwise. This problem is so rare that I can never hope to be able to demonstrate it for my mechanic. Because it rarely ever happens, I'm not going to go nuts replacing parts to try and fix it, but if anyone has any brilliant ideas about this, I'd love to know what they are. Thanks! -Andrew L
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