Way back, long, long ago, I merged the wiring from the 1978 2-door sedan with my 1979 Squire wagon. It runs! But after two weeks, the battery dies. I just put in a new starter. The first one was rebuilt, but the shunt coil (activates the flywheel gear drive) died. Warranty was finished, but they gave me a rebate. Now I have to go digging into the bowels of that spiderweb of wires and see where it's coming from. No draw when I connect the battery. No goodies running when the key is off. Something is drawing it out when the car runs and nukes the battery. The Alternator charges. It has a brand new regulator and the solenoid works. I think I screwed something up in the merging. And I did such a good job of re-taping the wiring to look completely stock, too. Not one splice or solder joint. Why did I merge them, you ask? Mine didn't have cruise control or the heavy wiring for the rear tailgate heated window. My car had a tinted tailgate window until some nice kid with a BB gun shot it and a rear quarter window, so they gave me a heated one. Always liked cruise control, so why not. Followed the schematics to the letter, colour matching and merging into the same connectors. But I goofed somewhere. brrrrr! :banghead3:
Maybe the battery is just toast??? dead cell? if theres NO draw...and it still dies?!...i'd try another battery before hacking up the wires
Yep. I did that, but I'll clean up any excess paint that may be reducing the current. I got three starts off of the donor battery - freshly charged this morning, and had to boost on the fourth. No signals on the Driver's side and signals on the Passenger side. Just came back with a second load of gravel (1 yard) and she ran fine. No funny smells or smoking wires. Andy's away until Wednesday, so I'll test with a lightbulb tester. It could be a dead cell, but they both charged up within 1.5 to 2.0 hours each from 6 amps to 3 amps. It's got me scratchin' my head. I've got a volts guage for the car that I can use too. Anyway, it's in my yard now, and when your rainfall leaves us on Tuesday, I'll get in there and dig in. Thanks for the ideas. I'll start with the batteries and ground straps, and drill down from there.
Man! The good stuff out here in the Internet stratosphere just blows me away sometimes! This is a great Techie Sticky on mystery wiring and finding the right circuits. It's related to radio systems, but the methods used are applicable to any car circuit! Plus this forum site is all about car circuits throughout. http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp~TID~74637~PN~1
I am a bit confused here; no draw when shut off. This means that it has to draw it empty while driving, drawing more then the alternator delivers. This should show up as the battery/alternator light, or?
I spent a couple hours on that 12Volt site. Like the Rev said, the grounds have a lot to do with it. Nothing from the idiot lights. Raining here until wednesday.
Appears it's a common issue. This topic runs through testing procedures and solutions. Probably applies to most cars. http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthread.php?t=63437 Another issue might be the nylon connector into the alternator (3 wires) might not be making enough contact. I still think I've got some wiring issues though, but I'll start with the grounds, cables, alternator connector. I found this excellent article on what they call the "BIG 3" on the 12volt site that makes so much sense to do. Definition: the "Big Three" upgrade means improving the current capacity of three cables: 1) alternator positive to battery positive, 2) battery negative to chassis, and 3) engine ground to chassis. http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp~TID~73496~PN~1 It's worth reading through the 12 pages. A lot of folks had weird issues and got great advice. This site is all about big sub-woofer systems with 1000 watt amps and boom-boxes. Not my bag, but the Halogen headlights and trailer lights do draw a lot of power. I am going to install that small 40w amp and my Sanyo radio. This Toshiba radio may be a good radio, but it won't stop scanning stations and I don't have the manual. And when I've got the cables worked out, I'm going to do what most shops don't do anymore - grease the battery connections. Keeps the corrosion off.
Fox bodied web resources I've still got some Reno work to finish under this local neighbourhood grant I won in a lottery-style contest and they extended the end date to October 31. Whew! So today is 'get the car wiring fixed day' !! :2_thumbs_up_-_anima It's raining for two more days starting tomorrow, so I can't pour concrete slabs and the other parts of the reno depend on the slabs. I went looking for the Most Likely Suspects on my wiring issues on the WWW and found a few good threads on the subject and other sites for Fox cars - Capri, Mustangs, Fairmonts, Zephyrs, Cougars and small T-Birds. I've had the links for awhile, but never had a chance to put brain and eyeballs in synch to really read through. Here's one guy's electrical trilogy: http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthread.php?t=66163 And his eventual solution(s): http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthread.php?t=66161 Here's a 1983 JPG version of the EVTM (Electrical, Vacuum Training Manual): (If you're lucky, they sometimes show up on EBay, for different years.) http://foureyedpride.com/fep_bild/v/img_arch/tech/evtm/83_turbo4_supplement This is Four Eyed Pride's main home page with menus to articles, tech, forums. Don't miss checking the Stickies. Fairmont/Zephyr/Cougar foxes are in the Other Fox categories on the Forums list: http://vb.foureyedpride.com/index.php And there are other Fox sites: http://www.ford-fox.org/ http://www.turboford.net/index.shtml Since most of the Fox-designed Ford vehicles share the same basic chassis, the issues are usually resolved the same way. It still about 36F right now (11:10 AM), but I'll be out there by noon. We're going to have a blistering hot day of 42F today, so my tools won't stick to my fingers. I'll post my findings and results later today.
I can't really help you on your particular problem, Norman, but these I my 2 cents. I have found now many times, that besides doggy rewiring etc, grounds etc are a common cause for electrical problems. Even my Subaru, who has a pretty high quality system, will benefit from a rewire on the big 3 and the ground connections for the engine-chassis. It will smooth idling and can even increase hp! I have used coppergrease on the bolt studs of the connections with good result. Furthermore, if you have the possibility to solder your connections, at least the "connection eye" on the wire itself, please do so! Often these are just squeezed on and can have a bad connection as corrosion will form inside. As an example, I had a 1989 Chevy Van G30 with the 6.2 diesel engine. It had 2 batteries, mostly used as it had been an ambulance before and they have separate systems for the car and their equipment. But starting was done by setting the master switch to both batteries. The explanation was that the big diesel engine with of course high compression needed a lot of power to turn. I thought what a nonsense, but on one battery it surely wouldn't start. On battery 1 it would not even crank, on battery 2 it would just crank, but not enough to start. Measuring the voltage during starting revealed a drop from 12 v to just over 3 volt at the starter on one battery!!! No wonder it wouldn't work. On 2 batteries it was just over 6v, so just enough. I went over the wiring route and found that it was interrupted by a lot of splits, joints and other "central points" (just were all wires come together on a bolt). I just made one soldered wire, thick gauge and short, directly from one battery to the starter solenoid. It worked like a charm!!! Voltage only dropped to 9.5v. Made a seperate charging system and voila, done. Certainly were it concens high powers, contact point should be avoided. But of course the common ground system in cars in general gives rise to all kinds of strange phenomena. I once had an acting up blinker light that turned out to be a faulty hazard light switch. Furthermore, I had a non working cruise control, just because of a replaced braking light by a LED one, as the cruise control system used the brake light to switch off when braking, but also as a ground. No problem with a normal glow light, but no-go with LED's! Well, I hope you find your problem soon. Keep us up to date of the solution!
Thanks Senri. I'm checking it out, after I change the Big 3 cables. I've got a multi-meter and all the diagrams. And two batteries all fully charged. Just having a quick lunch, and away I go.
Put a new solenoid in and took the old cables out. My wiring looks fine. Just making new battery and more ground cables to install tomorrow morning.
Ok! It runs at last! I still have to do some electrical testing, but here's what I did. Just to recap, I got the car on the road in early August, after two years of restoring it. Part of that was merging two wiring harnesses to add the options from the Donor (1978 2 door Fairmont which had the 200 CID six) with my 1979 Squire wagon's AC equipped 302 V8. The donor had Rostra's after-market Cruise control and a rear window de-icer. My Mexican wagon came without a de-icer tailgate window, but it has the rear-wiper/washer. I also added the passenger side sunvisor with the lighted vanity mirror. I merged the harnesses using both the 1978 and 1979 wiring diagrams to comply with the 1979 system in the Haynes diagrams/ Color-codes are the same, as are the wire guages. What Happened. After the car ran for about 2 weeks, like a track star, it wouldn't start without a boost. Then it wouldn't start even with a boost. The starter was like new when I got the donor. I exchanged for a new rebuilt unit. Worked for a few days, and again, it wouldn't start after 3 days of short-trips to a lumberyard (frequent starting). HandyAndy thought it was the solenoid and another old-school guy proved it was part of the problem, by bypassing with a battery boost. The Starter rebuilder also made a wierd comment when he tested the original starter that the Shunt circuit in the starter had died. I used to repair commutators in the Army, so I had checked it out for circuit issues and found nothing, so I still don't understand his 'shunt' comment. Regardless, I went to the WWW and found that BIG THREE tech article on the12volt.com forum, and bought new 2AWG cable and cable ends and terminals and made new battery and ground cables, then installed them. The old Donor battery was bulging on the ends, which is a sign that the battery had frozen once or twice before I got it. I put it on my trickle charger for 2 days. It barely turned the headlights on. Wouldn't turn the engine. My battery was in good shape and recharged, so I installed and cranked her back to life! I still think there's a leak in the circuit, so I removed the POS side off after letting the car run for about an hour to charge up and test a few things (headlight aim, bad bulbs, etc.) The Toshiba radio is going. I'm going to reinstall my old Sanyo in there until I find a Fairmont Stereo with Amplifier. The Toshiba needs a constant power source to store settings. Since I don't have the manual, and I can't find one for it, I'll go with what I have. At least I can prove out the bugs and use the car over the next few days, before it gets too cold to tweak it.
Big old soldering irons My neighbour skulks the back alleys for treasures of all kinds. He's an artsy bachelor, owns his own 2 storey home, rides his bike to work for a photolab, and collects anything that could have value to anyone. He has 2 10 gallon drums of glass door knobs! Anyway, this obsession forced him to buy the vacant lot nextdoor and build a high fence that is made of boards he found in the alleys, drove home on his bike, and built into a fantasy fort fence. Behind that fence are old childrens swings, French doors, lumber, old awnings, a few antique wash tubs, even a galvanized old style bathtub. He collects this stuff, and happy to give it away to someone who WILL use it. He's asked me to help him sell some car lights from 1946 to brand new, in the box, truck marker lamps. Hood ornaments, just because I restored my car. I'm not an EBAY fan, but I know someone who is. He wants to help an autistic girl from a broke family. Anyway, he had three of these old pre-50's soldering irons. All they are is a long handle (steel or high tensile strength 3/16" twisted wire on a wooden handle and a copper tip. The copper tip size depends on the job you have to do. The smallest one is like a long tapered rectangle. If I had to make one, I'd use the big contacts inside an old starter, drill some holes to fasten the steel handle (solid or thick wire - an old long screwdriver handle) and mount a wooden handle from a 1" X 1" chunk of Oak or Ash. So handy to make good battery cables and ground cables. You can't buy them anymore, because lead solder is a no-no. There's no other way to do some of these jobs. If you use an open flame from a propane torch, you'll burn the rubber sheathing. An electric soldering iron would never warm up a No. 2 AWG wire. So you heat this soldering iron away from the joint/ground lug, keeping the torch on the lug, and heating the wire with the iron. Strong joint, complete contact, better ground. I used plumbing/food grade solder with a bit of soldering paste/acid in the lug and on the new wire. Worked great. Lights are bright, wipers work like new, even the dash lights light up and adjust.
