Cougar

Rather than a ground issue, I think you have a power problem going to the cluster for those gauges. Get a voltmeter and check to see if those gauges are getting any voltage to them, using ground as your reference.

The first thing you need to do is make sure the fuses are good. Once that has been done you should check to see if voltage is getting to the blower motor when the speed selector is turned on to the high speed position. Use a test light or a meter to check with. You should see voltage on either of the blower motor leads if the resistor pack is causing the trouble. If you have no voltage then you should check the blower relay for a problem.

You may need to replace the alternator. I suggest you check the AC voltage across the battery while the engine is running around 1,500 RPM. If you have more than .1 volt of AC voltage then you need to replace the alternator. Changing out the alternator may help with the misfire problem but can't say that for sure. It may be a seperate problem. If the misfire issue happened after the alternator change then the troubles might be related.

If you haven't yet verified that the low beam filaments in the bulbs are good, as others have already stated, then you need to do that next. If they are ok then a fault with the switching is most likely the problem since the lows and highs share the same power to the lights. It is the ground side that is switched to turn on the lights.

I think if the fuse for the alternator was bad then the warning lights wouldn't be able to turn on. You should have less than .1 volt of AC voltage across the battery when the alternator is running and in good shape. Your alternator clearly is defective with 45 volts of AC. You may have to replace your battery also. Have it tested before you put in the new alternator to make sure it is ok. When you replace the alternator and if you find the warning lights are still on then I suspect you will need to replace the external voltage regulator also. There may be a bad blocking diode in it and it is allowing power to flow back to the warning lights and turn them on. The warning lights are in the field circuit of the alternator so they can be in the test mode when you turn on the ignition and the engine isn't running. That allows current from the ignition switch to pass through the lights and to ground through the alternator field windings. When the alternator is running, the field is built up and back feeds power to the lamps. The lamp circuit now has no ground connection and the lights turn off until there is a problem with either the alternator or in the area the warning light is for.

An easy place to spray starter fluid into is the air filter or the filter box but it sounds like you may have used the wrong timing marks or may be 180 degrees off.

In picture two you show a couple of relays. You could try removing them and see if that clears the trouble.

It sounds like the valve timing may be off even though you have checked things. You could do a compression check and that should tell you if things are ok, or not, with the timing. I assume you have tried starting the engine using starter fluid already and verified you have spark to the plugs. If that doesn't work then the valves are about all that is left.

Perhaps with all the testing you have done it may have somehow cleared the trouble that was going on.

Greetings to Iceland from Alaska. So the next time this kind of thing happens hopefully the first thing to come out for testing is the voltmeter, rather than replace a lot of parts needlessly.

Going from some of your last responses it sounds like the trouble has gone away, for the time being at least, is that correct?

I think GD is correct. Turn on the head lights and blower to high then check for AC voltage across the battery while the engine is running around 1500 RPM. Using a digital meter you should see less than .1 volt of AC. Also recheck the DC voltage since things seemed to have changed after you did the previous testing.

I will try to find out what those wires are tied to that you gave the colors on. As far as the delay in the power cutoff I can only speculate that it is a normal operation and things are going into the sleep mode when the power is finally cutoff.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Ok, my bad. The Cat hasn't been getting enough rest at night and is worn down. The hunting skills aren't what the should be. After looking at the data again I see the violet and yellow wires you are taking about. They tie to the pump relay coil. The yellow wire supplies power from fuse 16 and should be hot when the ignition is turned on. There is a connector in between the fuse and the relay connection so that may be where the trouble is if the fuse isn't causing the trouble. The connector is B62 and F45 according to my data. If the fuse checks ok then you need to check that connector for a problem. The violet wire is the return side of the circuit that makes the ground connection for the relay coil through the ECU.

From the sounds of things you still may need to replace the alternator. It seems to be failing above certain RPMs.

My info doesn't show any purple wire in the circuit. Are you sure you are on the correct relay? The info also shows that one side of the pump motor ties directly to ground so your model is controlled differently than some others. From your previous info it looked like there is a bad wire connection on the power side of the wiring to the pump.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.