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the ing system powers the idle moter for about one min after shutoff makes a buzz it times out but thiss is normal operation as far as i know all ejs do thiss somthing to do with reseting the idle moter

 

if this is correct, might there be a ''timer'' in the circuit somewhere?

if this were faulty it could leave the circuit ''on'' too long?

just a thought.

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I'm not sure what the difference in the ECUs is but I would suspect they are the same in the area you are trying to prove out.

 

The Main relay connects power coming from SBF-2 to the ECU and also to a number of things for the engine.

Edited by Cougar
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check for dirt or corotion on the ig brown realay it takes very little to turn on realay a tiny bit of dirt will bridge the conection and turn on realy had a leagacy that heater fan would not shut off was a coroded realy the corotion was making a conection between the termanals because the realys get power all the time there the most likly to cause a problem it takes just .5 volts to energise the realay.

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  • 2 months later...

well i'm still having this problem. i did find the radio wired in wrong and was some how backfeeding into my parking lights keeping them on. i fixed that. the problem is not the main relay or ecu. i know its not the iac.. i just unpluged the injectors and a bunch of engine sensors and didn't change the problem. now what i'd like to know is if it's even possable for a sensor or somthing in the circuit to somehow tell the ecu to keep the relay energized? this way i know where i should and shouldn't be looking

Edited by pamike
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The ECU should shut down when the ignition switch is turned off. The only power going to it should be for the memory.

 

Check to see if any of the fuses in the dash have power on them while the trouble is occurring. This may help us pin the trouble down if you find something live there. I know you already did check some of them.

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i will check fuses again. but i found somthing very wierd. theirs 3 connectors on the right side behind the motor bolted to the bellhousing on a bracket. these plug the engine harness into the car harness. if i unplug the top connector nothing happens. i unplug the second connector and the power draw goes away, same thing as pulling the 30A fuse in the underhood box. now the bottom connector when unpluged turns on the left cooling fan and it continues to run until i plug it back in. then after doing this the draw also goes away. also noticed after doing this my temp gauge points way past hot. it just shoots right up as soon as i unplug it along with the fan coming on. somthing just doesnt seem right about this. edit- found fuse #15 in the inside box (main fan) had .3v if that matters

Edited by pamike
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In regards to the things you mentioned in post 32 I suggest you check the grounds to the engine and make sure all those are ok. Make sure there is a good bond from the motor to the chassis also. A bad ground connection will have a voltage drop across it while power is applied.

 

To see if the ignition switch is causing trouble check to see if the fuses in the dash have voltage getting to them while the ignition is off. There should no voltage there if the switch is working correctly.

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checked and cleaned all grounds i could find. still no progress on this. i'm about ready to just cut the power wire to the main relay and put in a toggle switch. the car runs fine otherwise so i don't see a problem with doing this.

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Is there anything extra that has been connected to the wiring? I am trying to figure out what could be causing the voltage backfeed problem.

 

Just a wild thought here, start the engine and measure the AC voltage across the battery. You should see less than .1 volt of AC. Another test you could do is disconnect the plug on the backside of the alternator, then start the engine and then shut it off. Then see if the trouble is still happening. If it isn't, then the alternator may be generating too much ripple voltage.

Edited by Cougar
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the only extra wiring thats on there is the wiring for my hella lights. but this problem has been going on way before those lights were ever on the car. and i've replaced the alt before with no change to this problem. i've checked the wiring to the radio also and found a mis-placed wire that was causing my backfeeding problem to my parking lights but i've fixed that. i'm also just gonna unplug the radio completely when i get a chance and see if that does anything. however i dont think this is the problem because i remember looking at that wiring and i'm sure that it's all correct now.

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Perhaps something in the cluster is causing this trouble. If it isn't too much trouble you might try disconnecting the connections to it and see if that clears the trouble. Another thing you might try is disconnecting the clock to see if something is backfeeding from the memory circuit for the clock.

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I have another thought about this issue and am very sure it is the answer to this problem. After going over the posts again to make sure I understand all the previous testing I see that Ivans Imports had the same thinking in post 29, so he thought of this first.

 

This trouble has to be due to a problem with the Main Relay socket. To explain the trouble there has to be a bridged connection between one of the two switched switched contact sides of the relay and to the hot side of the relay coil. This would provide power to the relay coil and keep it turned on regardless of what condition the ECU is in and should be controlling the relay. When the relay or power to it is removed then the relay contacts open and power can't reach the coil to turn it on again, until it is turned on normally again and the latch occurs. That is the trouble, no doubt about it. Look for signs of something on the socket that shouldn't be there. I know this won't be easy to do since it is way up inside the dash area.

Edited by Cougar
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i see no problems at the socket. i however did confirm that somthing from that circuit has to be bridged to the relay power wire. i managed to plug the relay into just the power and ground without the other wires touching and the relay turns on and off with the key as it should. so you are correct about what the problem probably is but i think the problem is somwhere else. i see nothing wrong with the connection to the relay.

edit- do you happen to know where the ground is for the main relay?

Edited by pamike
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Lets do a resistance test between the switched contacts side of the relay and the hot side of the coil. That will prove there is a bridged connection between those points if there is a low resistance between them. Do the test with the relay removed from the socket if that helps and if you disconnect the ECU that will totally isolate the coil lead from anything. Perhaps something is wrong with the socket that we can't see easily. The resistance test will tell the truth.

 

I'm not sure where the ground for the relay goes and I'm not sure why that is a concern. That is working ok.

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ok with ecu disconnected i get nothing when checking resistance. but with ecu connected and the black wire from my meter touching the light green relay power wire i got approx. 9.06 K ohms at the yellow/blue and yellow/red wires. i however don't get any reading with my meter wires reversed. i don't know if this means anything or not. i'm also getting resistance readings between the black ground wire and the yellow/blue, yellow/red wires with ecu connected and disconnected if that matters. all of this checked at the main relay connector with relay dissconnected. so is it possable that the problem is occuring after the ecu and backfeeding through the ecu to the relay? or is this not possable because of the fact that the ecu cuts power to the light green wire when key is turned off?

 

i also got a voltage reading with the relay energized when the problem is occuring and i got 11.22 v between power and ground while the switched contact side had the normal 12v. so thier is a reduced amount of voltage powering the relay

Edited by pamike
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just wanted to add that as i said before this problem doesn't always happen. for an example, i just reconnected the relay and ecu and i started the car. after running for a few minutes i turned it off and the relay was off.:confused::confused::confused:

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I can't see how power can get to the relay coil unless there is a bridged connection from the switched contacts but even that power has to pass through the ignition switch so it should be cutoff, regardless. The only other active power that I know of is the memory circuit power. It would be interesting to know if the trouble cleared if that fuse was pulled out of the panel under the hood.

 

The logical suspect for the trouble is the ECU but you already checked that out. I must say, this is a good one one here.

 

The 11.2 volt reading you took is just about the right difference to indicate there may be a diode being biased on somewhere. There is about a .7 volt drop across a diode in order to turn it on.

 

Sooo.... after reading your last comment again in post 42 are you saying that the voltage was higher on the relay contacts for the yel/blu or yel/red wires than on the red wire that ties to the fuse? If so, that means the power is coming from something on the other side of the relay contacts, from the opposite direction it should come from. If that is the case which one of the two relay contacts had the voltage on it?

Edited by Cougar
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Sooo.... after reading your last comment again in post 42 are you saying that the voltage was higher on the relay contacts for the yel/blu or yel/red wires than on the red wire that ties to the fuse? If so, that means the power is coming from something on the other side of the relay contacts, from the opposite direction it should come from. If that is the case which one of the two relay contacts had the voltage on it?

 

the voltage between the light green wire and ground was 11.22 as i said. the yel/blue and yel/red had the normal 12v as did the 2 wires from the underhood fuse(which are hot at all times). and i think i said before about when i unplug the engine harness connector at the bellhousing it breaks the circuit and the draw goes away. wouldn't that mean their is a connection being made in the engine harness? this is the connector with the yel/red and yel/blue wires.

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Ok, it was unclear to me which wire had the 11.2 volts on it. I also made an incorrect statement about the power to the mian relay being cut off with the ignition switch. Power to it doesn't pass through the switch and is always hot, as you noted. I got it confused with the fused power line to the pump relay which does get cut off.

 

While I figured we finally had the trouble pinned down with the relay bridging power to the coil wire it appears that isn't the case. There should have been a low resistance reading between the coil lead and the switched contacts if that was so. Your test results proved it is ok, though at the moment the intermittent problem has gone away.

 

Power to the relay coil must be coming from the ECU so to me that means somehow power is getting to the ECU when it shouldn't be. Unless the intermittent trouble is inside the ECU we should be able to find out which lead to the ECU is suppling power to it. I see there is one red wire that ties to the main relay that also ties to pin 42 of the ECU so that will have power on it. That may be for the memory but I'm not sure of that. If you can check for power on all the wires going to the ECU while the problem is occurring then we should be able to track down the circuit that way.

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ok i will check that. i just wanted to add(if i havn't already) that i managed to connect the relay to just the power and ground(light green and black wires) without touching the other 4 pins of the connector, and i then cycled the key on and off while listening to the relay. it turned on and off as it should.

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So things worked normally when you did that. If isolating the relay contacts makes the trouble with the current drain go away then the relay has to be providing the power to something that is causing the trouble. The yel/blu wire does tie to the ECU via the relay. It would be interesting to see if removing that wire from the ECU makes the trouble stop while it is happening.

Edited by Cougar
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do you have a wiring diagram of the ecu pins you could post up? how would i remove the wire from the connector? i know somtimes they can be a pain. but i just checked some wires at the ecu with the main relay on and alot of the wires have some power to them rangeing from .13v up to 11.5v.

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I might be able to figure something out for the diagram. As far as voltages to be concerned about we only need to check voltages that are 11.2 volts and above since that is what you read on the relay coil wire. There shouldn't be very many, perhaps no more than one or two.

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