Cougar

Thanks for the drawing, that helps me a lot to see how things are. You are good to go alright. I just don't like to do things like that since it can make things hard to figure out if something happens. As long as you know what is going on it is fine, but if someone else has to follow your work then that is a different case.

The trouble does indeed sound like a bad chassis ground issue like Naru stated. Try cleaning the battery to chassis ground connection to see if that helps. If that doesn't help then try running a temporary ground wire from the battery to the dash area and see if that changes things. If it does then clean the dash grounding points.

I understand what you did but by doing that you may have tied continuous power to those accessories that were on switched power through the ignition switch. I am just going by memory and don't have access to my data right now.

It sounds to me that you may need a new ignitor module.

You may find it is more cost effective to just install a rebuilt unit rather than have a local shop rebuild yours.

One of the dash fuses should provide power to the dash illumination. I suggest you check the voltage at the fuse while the problem is occurring and see if there is a voltage drop there. If there isn't a drop then move on down the line till you find it. The dash grounding could be an issue also. You may find the trouble is just due to normal wire losses.

Verify that fuse 16 in the dash fuse panel has power to it while the ignition switch is in the RUN position. If you have no voltage there then the ACC contact of the ignition switch needs to be checked. If you have no voltage there either then the switch needs to be replaced. An added note. The fusible links inside the plastic box mounted on the coolant reservoir can sometimes have loose connections and cause problems. I don't think they are an issue in this case but it is just something to be aware of.

Try cleaning the battery connections and make sure the fusible links are making a good solid clean connection. They are in the plastic box mounted on the coolant reservoir.

That is interesting what you say there Fairtax4me. Doodlebug: There are many good books you can purchase that will teach you how to work on the electrical systems of today's cars. They will also teach you about working with basic DC circuits and how to test them. When you have learned and mastered things like Ohm's Law you will have made a big step forward. There is also a lot of free information on the web. A small investment in a good book will pay you big dividends later on.

You're welcome for the help Doodlebug. Power to some of the fuses at least need to be checked with the ignition switch turned ON. Power is provided to the fuses (like the radio fuse) through the ignition switch. That is why you had no voltage there, if everything is ok to that point at least. Leave the fuses in place for the test. You will notice on top of each side of the fuses there is a small slit to place your meter probe on to check each side of the fuse. The fuses marked in red may mean they have power to them only with the ignition switch turned on, but I'm not sure about that. The fuse labels in your picture are numbered by starting with number 1 being in the lower left corner of the panel, marked Heater. Number 2 above it is marked Heater also and that progresses to 8. Fuse 9 is to the right of fuse 1 and they progress up the same way in the middle column along with the third column doing the same thing. So the radio fuse is #13. I'm not sure why the radio wouldn't work unless the memory power was tied in also.

Have you made sure that other things aren't causing the trouble like a bad head gasket or timing belt problem? If you haven't done a compression test yet that might be a good thing to do. To see if the injectors are bad you could swap the sides.

The light flicker is due to the bad diodes inside the alternator. That causes excessive ripple voltage which makes the lights flicker. The best thing you can do for your new alternator is make sure the battery is in good shape along with the post connections. The two work together.

The device you mention will make the alternator work harder. Even if the device draws 20 amps, that is a significant load on the alternator, plus the other things it has to supply power to. As far as the warning lights go you either didn't read my previous post which explained why they are doing what they are doing or you don't believe it. When you replace the alternator you will see what I mean.

Alright, we are making some progress. You say all the links have 12 volts on the protected side of the links so now we can move on down the line to see where the trouble is at. You now need to check the voltage (with reference to ground again) getting to fuses 13-16 in the fuse panel. If the voltage is low there then you need to check the ignition switch, the white wire to the switch from the battery, or the wiring to the fuse panel for a problem. The correct abbreviation for millivolts is mv.

Make sure you have 12 volts on BOTH sides of the links with reference to ground. If you have that confirmed and there is still a power problem then the trouble is after the links.

Okay, now I understand how you got those readings. You can certainly do what you did but it isn't the easiest way to do the testing we wanted to do. You should be making the readings with the meter reference to ground. That is by placing the black common lead of the meter to a good chassis ground point. Then place the red probe of the meter on each of the fusible links on the protected side of the link. You should see 12 volts at each of the links if the links are good along with the power source. Making the readings the way you did seems to indicate there is a problem with all of the links, especially the one that had 12 volts on it. Making the measurements the way you did there should normally be close to no voltage since the links should have very low resistance and that means a low voltage drop. A good fuse will always have very little voltage across the fuse itself since it basically is a piece of wire. A fusible link has a specific current capacity and will melt in the middle if the current exceeds the limit.

I don't see how you can get the latest voltage readings unless you are making them on the protested (load) side of the fusible links. That would then mean that 3 of the fusible links are either bad or have bad terminal connection to the new power source. The connector you fixed has to be getting 12 volts to it since one of the links at least has good voltage on it. All of the links should have 12 volts on either side of them with respect to ground. Just as an observation: The solder connection you made shows signs of not enough heat being applied to the connection. All of the wire should be covered by a smooth flow of solder, but you most likely won't have trouble with the joint if you leave it as is.

Another place to check for the trouble is the fusible links. Make sure they are making good connection. They are locate in the plastic box mounted on the coolant reservoir. One of them ties power to the fuel pump and ignition relays.

You stated that you pulled the fuse for the blower and the blower still runs, even with the relay pulled. Are you sure you have the correct relay? If you do have the correct one then the bridged power connection has to be after the relay connections. I suspect though you may be pulling out the wrong relay. Check the other fuses to see if you can disable the fan that way for more clues to the source of the power. If pulling all the fuses still doesn't kill the fan then we need to look for power inputs not going through the fuse panel or ignition switch.

Check the AC voltage at the battery posts while the engine is running around 1,500 RPM. A good alternator should show less than .1 volt of AC voltage. You stated that the trouble cleared when you hit a bump so something isn't right and it appears to be due to a connection problem rather than something like a diode failing. The trouble could very well be inside the alternator. The reason that the warning lights turn on is because they are tied to the alternator field lead for testing and when the alternator has trouble the other warning lights can turn on also, depending on the fault condition.

Fuse #1 ties to the blower relay using a grn/wht wire which splices onto a orn/wht wire, which ties to the blower. The return side of the motor ties to the resistors and then they tie to the speed switch and ground. I suggest check you check the fuse panel and wiring to it for the problem.

There should be only one set of 4 mounted together. Two of the four are for the headlights.

I think is one of 4 relays mounted about in the middle of the firewall under the dash.

There is a fairly common problem with some of the ECUs from that time. It sounds like your unit may have a controlled ground for the fuel pump through the ECU. There is a driver transistor that drives the output transistor inside the ECU that is a common failure item. I have repaired a couple of them in the past. The same transistor was at fault on both of them. You might have the same problem with yours. Thanks for the update and glad you got things running.

The ACC lead that comes from the ignition switch is a different contact than the IGN contact. The only thing that I can think of that happened is the fan (I assume you mean the blower and not the cooling fan) is back feeding voltage to the other circuits from another source of power. I could see that happening if it is the cooling fan circuit since it is hot at all times and doesn't pass through the ignition switch. Looking at the data again it shows that power to the blower relay for the blower is hot at all times also. So a bridged connection there could have caused the trouble.