Interesting dash problems........

Okay, I posted about this a LONG timea go, but never recieved help on it. And I kinda just started to live with it. But after putting the car in storage, and waiting 6 months to drive it now I REALLY wanna fix it.

This is the problem I'm having, my dash lights wont' work when the door is closed. Also, when the door is closed the turn signal and high beam indicators are lit, as well as having no tach or speedo. But at the same time, my coolant temp is PEGGED.

So with all this funky stuff going on, I have no idea where to look.

But, when the driver side door is open EVERYTHING works correctly, as it should.

We traced the tan/white wires from the driver side door switch to the harness but they weren't in bad shape. The wires didn't have any exposed or frayed ends. I assume these wires travel through the car to the dome light, lights in the foot well, and all around the car..

I'm assuming that because it operates normaly when the door is open that the wires are crossed somewhere in the car. I just need to track them down.

 

the only thing that door switch does is set the ground...


so i would start by looking at the dash grounds.

 

Me and bill were pulling our hair out last night trying to solve this.

Dash grounds seem to be the culprit.

Can someone tell us where the grounds are?

Any kind of diagram would be great.

 

Where are they located, and what colors are the ground wires?

I found one loose wire with a ring terminal and I bolted that to a spot that looked like somesort of ground was attached before. But no difference.

Please, diagrams, physical locations under the dash, colors. Anything that could help me solve this problem would be VERY helpful.

 

Hello FruityOne,

You mentioned this in your other post yesterday and then I saw this today. So I took a quick look at my schematics and granted they are for an 89 camaro. I did find this out, there is only one thing that all these items have in common and that is a ground that goes to the dash's metal frame work near the fuse panel. Just a thought!!

 

My car has been like this for two years. I made a few posts about it last year after I put the engine in and all I can say is...no one responded.


Trixter, what color is the ground wire? I found a loose wire under there with a ring terminal on it, I screwed it to one of the dashes metal rails, but maybe I didn't choose a good ground. I'll have to see about it.

 

Hello Fruity one,

The ground wire will be black, This particular ground wire has splices running off it going everywhere. On my car, there are two grounds in that spot.

 

Hmm...the wire I tied up and grounded was blue. Guess thats not it.

Come to think of it I haven't seen ANY black wires grounded anywhere under the dash..... Sweet, looks like I won't be bored this weekend!

BTW, something to note. GTA Ultimate seats are VERY comfortable if you are sitting normally. But they are infinitely more UNcomfortable when you are upside down in them trying to track wires under the dash!!!!!!!

 

That's why I always pull my seat out if I have to be in that predicament. Then the bolts usually get me in the back or butt.

 

There should be one ground going to the column, and another up under the dash, kind of out of sight.

 

Fruity, does your "key buzzer" work ok?

 

Nope, no buzzer.

What part of the dash harness do the grounds come out of? Just trying to make it a little easier to track them down. I assumed the grounds would be black, the usually are. Just a matter of locating them in that mess of wires.

 

Hello FruityOne,

I thought I had sent this to you earlier, I guess I hadn't. You will notice in here that one of the items that go to that ground I mentioned is the Audio Alarm assembly. This a schematic of the items covered by that ground point under the dash.

 

Much thanks! I swear, whenever I see your name as the last reply to a message I just lunge towards the link, have to see your response.

 

You're welcome FruityOne, hope that takes a little bit of the sweating under the dash out of the way. As you can see, I got the sig working with the help of CamaroPimp who made it for me.

 

Sweet, yeah I noticed.

Hope my reply wasn't too muddled. It was 3:30am in the morning. I was dead tired. Still work up at 7:00 to go to work this morning.

3.5 hours of sleep does not make me a very alert person.

 

A little more help here to give you a better idea of where it's located in the general vicinity of this. BTW, it is shown looking at it from the rear towards the driver. I can relate to some of those long nights and little sleep also.

 

Thank you very much. Ahh, its sunny and warm outside today. I think its a good day to work on my car!

 

You lucky guy, I just had a cloud pass over and dump about 1/2" of rain on me and then the sun came out for about 2 minutes and another cloud come over. It's been a vicious cycle like this all morning.

 

Found the ground I think. Is it black w/blue strip? If so, then its grounded. the wire is coming out of the harness where its shown in the diagram, I can't find any other loose black wires. In fact no loose wires at all. Back under the dash for me!

 

Used some sand paper to clean up the contacts and no difference. That loose wire is not the ground as far as I can see. Its coming out of the right harness though. Grrr....

Either that, or its spliced/damaged somewhere and shorting out. I checked the wire back as far as I could follow and it looks fine. The wire is still pliable, not stiff or corroded. The part where it connects to the ring terminal isn't frayed either.

 

could the button that tells the car that the door is open be shorting out or f** up?

 

Hey FruityOne,

I just got a chance to go out to my car and look at that ground. On mine, it is two black wires going into one ring terminal lug and bolted to the dash metal frame. The two wires are of different sizes, one is about 16 gauge and the other is about 22 gauge. They are on the left side of the steering column.

 

Okay FruityOne,

Here is an update to my last post, the two wires I mentioned in it come out of the wire harness above the fuse panel if that helps you any.

 

what does the convenience center do? it's in that diagram above

 

It has your Audio alarm assembly (tall item), flasher relay (round item), and several fuses as applicable to the system.

 

A hunting we will go
A hunting we will go
hi ho, the merrio, a hunting we will go.

Time to find that other black wire.

 

FruityOne, you need to take a break here. You're starting to sound too D*MN happy there.

 

I'll be happy when the electrical system works like it should.

So close to just yanking the entire freaking dash and calling it a week.
:lala:

Besides, my NOS GM centercaps came today too. Brand new, never been opened. Sooooo purdy.

 

Try disconnecting all of the wires from the door pin switch and see what that will do. Also, did your car ever have an aftermarket alarm system in it? They have sensors that monitor voltage drops and grounds to the door switches, someone may have buggered up the install/ un-install.

 

YES! The car did have an Alarm at one point. It was removed long before I bought the car though. So I couldn't tell you what was done on install/uninstall.