my 88 dl wagon came to me with electrical problems (no start,no dash ,no fan,and so on) i fixed everything i could think of everything worked intermittantly and i was pulling my hair out trying to track down the problem and was laying up under the dash and my wife called me in for supper and i reached up under the dash to pull myself up and bumped a bunch of wires and everything came back to life.now if i can recreate  this happy accident again  and get it running  i can go on and fix the drivers side spindle and brakes and such i messed up towing about 6 miles without an axle. by the way i have a brand new axle that is the larger size and won't fit my car if anyone needs one the guy at the store sold me the wrong one twice and won't take it back so io will trade it for the right size one. the kid assumed it was turbo and it wasn't and i did not know how to measure the output of the tranny, two different  sizes and splines. oh well live and learn  and learn to swear in japanese.

I ended up pulling my dashboard searching for a short. Last owner went crazy wiring up BS.  Sorry its not much help. But hopefully you find it without needing to pull the dash!

Sounds like you have an intermittent connection. Find out where your power and ground wires are for those circuits and trace them all and make sure all your connections are good. Remember shorts blow fuses. Opens/ loose connectors and such dont. You can use your digital meter to test for power and should see voltage up until the open.

i need to get a good meter harbor freight meters suck

I had a short several years ago that if I hit a pothole or railroad tracks it would blow the ignition fuse. Finally on my third attempt to find it with the dash mostly disassembled I found it. My memory is bad but the best I can remember it was a little tiny 18 or 20 ga. wire on the back side of a bundle. It was just barely touching a piece of metal towards the firewall. Had been cut in two and every hard bump made it contact metal. I struggled to get the wire crimped back together and wrapped with multiple layers of tape. I even taped the edges of the piece of metal. Only thing that came on different was two dash lights if my memory is correct. Don't know why wiring for the dash lights would blow the ignition fuse??? That is a short, sounds like yours maybe a bad connector or connection. Electrical problems suck!

Edited June 19, 201510 yr by bratman2

i think someone told me there was a ground on the studs for the brain box i  don't remember hooking one up 99% of electrical  problems are poor or no ground. remeber k.i.s.s. keep it simple stupid. in other words try the simple stuff first.

The ground wire is Black with a large ring terminal end on it.

 

Should be on the Left side of the steering column, and attached to either the ECU or steering column mounts.

Only fasteners in that area large enough to accept the ring terminal.

 

If you don't see it on one of those, you need to search for the loose end, and get it grounded.

thanks i will try that as soon as i get some time. time and wife wait for no man.

the ground wire was hooked up i think it was a bad relay,when it had everything loose it worked as soon as i put it up into place it stopped working and i found out my fuel pump leaks and it wasn't the lines it was the pump itself.

fixed the relay and the pumpnow my ecm even lights up.