:::RHMT::: Real Home Made Turbo

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: turbostd on August 03, 2009, 11:06:26 AM

Title: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: turbostd on August 03, 2009, 11:06:26 AM
A good friend of mine has a 92 s10 has a shitty 2.8 v6 5 speed in it. Anyhow he has run into some interesting electrical gremlins. The alternator died in it a while back so i replaced it for him and now the elec system seems fubar. The truck will sit and idle all day but if you go for a drive it will go for a bit then just shut down. If you crank it a while it will fire back up but shortly after it will just quit again. We also noticed yesterday while fucking with it if you turn the headlights on the truck shuts right off. The lights never even come on and you have to disconnect and reconnect the battery  :o I tested the power wire going to the headlight switch and there is 0.1v going to it 0-o so that tells me there is a short somewhere. Anyone run into this kinda thing on s10s? Any ideas on where to start before I start ripping out his dash and tracing wires?


Cliffs:
92 s10 dies randomly loss of electrical power
If you turn the headlights on it shuts off and wont start again
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: Joseph Davis on August 03, 2009, 12:27:47 PM
The lights never even come on and you have to disconnect and reconnect the battery 

Basic ground problem.
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: DmC on August 03, 2009, 12:30:30 PM

Basic ground problem.
  funny how it always comes back to that.
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: turbostd on August 03, 2009, 12:35:26 PM
would a bad headlight ground cause the ecu to not work? What ever is causing it spikes the ecu once it shuts down the cel doesn't come on and the fuel pump no longer primes. If its a ground i bet its the main one under the dash :/
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: DmC on August 03, 2009, 01:25:07 PM
would a bad headlight ground cause the ecu to not work? What ever is causing it spikes the ecu once it shuts down the cel doesn't come on and the fuel pump no longer primes. If its a ground i bet its the main one under the dash :/
no headlights should be on a seperate harness.  But clean the battery posts and all grounds you can find. then the problem should go away.
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: Tim on August 03, 2009, 02:06:37 PM
But clean the battery posts and all grounds you can find. then the problem should go away.
+1 start with the easy shit.  My 97 full size chevy was doing similar fucked up random shit.  Guys said the gages and things were going nuts with the key off etc. and it would just die randomly.

Cleaned the battery cables (both ends) and it has been behaving since.

Still has the intermitten o2 code it's always had but no one ever bothered to look into it, but I could care less it runs.
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: crttaz on August 03, 2009, 10:45:02 PM
The dying, check fuel pressure. Weak pump will have enough pressure to idle, but once you get going, GM dies.

Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: patsmx5 on August 03, 2009, 11:04:45 PM
Bad ground or connection.
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: t_cel_t on August 04, 2009, 02:16:10 AM
if you have ever taken a battery out when a car is running and try to turn the lights on it dies right away, the system has no capacitence in a sense.
i would guess the fuse between the alternator and the battery is blown, or the ground is bad.
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: turbostd on August 04, 2009, 02:39:41 PM
Ok I worked on this truck for a few hr yesterday. So far i have ruled out:

Battery
Battery terminals
Main ground
Alternator
Alternator wiring
Wiring at the starter
Headlight wiring from the firewall forward
Headlight switch itself
All fuses are good

Now I have a couple more things on my list to check but after that im stumped  :-\  I still need to check the fuse box itself and any dash harness grounds i can see without removing the entire dash. I have the cluster and radio out and all the wiring behind there seems fine. Electrical problems are a nightmare I may just have to change the whole dash harness to get things sorted :-\
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: Robb on August 04, 2009, 02:43:04 PM
Worked on a mitsu yesterday that wouldnt start cause of a shitty ground.  Fixed the ground and the Timing belt jumped on startup.  :noel:
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: Joseph Davis on August 04, 2009, 03:43:08 PM
Ok I worked on this truck for a few hr yesterday. So far i have ruled out:

Battery
Battery terminals
Main ground
Alternator
Alternator wiring
Wiring at the starter
Headlight wiring from the firewall forward
Headlight switch itself
All fuses are good

Now I have a couple more things on my list to check but after that im stumped  :-\  I still need to check the fuse box itself and any dash harness grounds i can see without removing the entire dash. I have the cluster and radio out and all the wiring behind there seems fine. Electrical problems are a nightmare I may just have to change the whole dash harness to get things sorted :-\

How have you ruled these things out? 
Title: Re: electrical woes (s10)
Post by: Ntrain2k on August 04, 2009, 04:46:48 PM
Worked on a mitsu yesterday that wouldnt start cause of a shitty ground.  Fixed the ground and the Timing belt jumped on startup.  :noel:

Mitsufail