I am working on a '89, 305,TA, TBI, project car. It had a wire running from the Radiator fan to the INJ fuse in the fuse box. My wife and I were going for a short test drive and the Fan wire got pinched, grounded out and burned up. We lost power to the ignition system and to the gauges.

I have checked and replaced the fusable links on the starter wires. I have checked for voltage on the starter wires and I am getting 12.6 volts. I am not getting voltage to the purple solenoid wire. If I jumper the Solenoid wire the starter will spin but the injectors do not inject fuel and i do not think I am getting fire to the plug wires.

I have checked and replaced all of the fuses in the fuse box although I did not find any bad ones and I have looked and looked again for melted or burnt wires. so far, I have not found any. My local parts place suggested a new ignition module on the distributor. It did not change anything, but I wanted to put on a new one anyway.

I have power to the dome lights, headlights, heater fan, warning beeper, power windows, the cd player and power locks. I probably have power elsewhere but that is all i have discovered so far. I do not seem to have power to the turn signals.

I am wondering if I have damaged the computer. I am stumped. I need any help I can get.

This is a first time post for me, so if I have not followed correct procedure, just let me know. 1eman1

 

Since I posted, I have been checking the ground wires, one black with a white stripe and one solid brown. They are paired ro the same round connector. The first couple of inches of the brown one looked a little crispy, probably not new damage, and i replaced about a foot of both wires. They are grounded to the intake manifold. That is probably not a good place. After work today I will find a place to ground them to the block. I traced both wires for quite a ways in the wiring harness and they both do not appear to show any damage. After work also I will take my meter and do a ground check.

 

Did you run a wire from a cooling fan to inside the car's fusebox ?

 

The fan was wired to bypas the fan sensor. The neg wire ran to the NEG battery post and the pos wire ran to the INJ fuse in the fuse box. I will have to correct this when i get the car running again. That pos wire got pinched and melted causing the problem

 

I cannot find a short or burned wire, nor can i find a problem fuse. The fusable links are replaced, as is the ground wire. I have not even cross threaded the POS cable on my battery and I still have no power to the starter, injectors, gauges or ignition.

I am certainly not an expert, but at least to me, everything points to a fried computer. I have almost the same power situation with it in or out. So I pulled it out, and went to the parts store, they put one on order for $80. But a little while ago, I thought, "Here I am replacing a part I do not even want to deal with in the first place."

Earlier in the day I looked at another thirdgen message board and read about ditching the computer and doing a TBI/carbureator switch. That's really the way i want to go anyway. So I guess the short is just a blessing in disguise.

Now i am going to the other board and start looking for an intake manifold, carbureator and distributor. Cool deal!

 

if the coil is not putting out secondary voltage thenm the injectors wont fire either, i have found this out the hatrd wat in the past, i would check for spark at the plugs, in my case the pink hot feed wire on primary side of coil was bad inside its insulation, was hard to tell til we moved the wire around while cranking engine and it fired right up, but would die if you messed with the wire at the coil plug end

one wire that is messed up but looks OK on the outside can cause big problems too

good luck

 

Thanks for the info. I will check it out this morning.