911 Wiring Madness!

[SoobGoob]

so it started about 3 days ago. when to start my car and no power. got a jump and it would turn over but not start. gauges werent working. i replaced a fuse and i was good to go. last night at 5am my horn went on HOOOONNNNNKK by itself till i went out and punched the steering wheel and it stoped. neighbors werent to happy. drove fine all day today and went home for about an hour and went to start my car boom low low low volts not enough to turn over engine gauges were going crazy auto seatbelt was going nuts lights were flashing it was like a laser light show in my car. checked all my fuses and they were all good, tryed to jump it and push start it but wouldnt turn over. kicked it, gave up and dissconnected the battery. (dont want it making a 5am wakeup call anymore) could this be possiable stereo wiring crossing maybe? or something far far far worse

[daeron]

definitely sounds like a fairly major short. Where did you get the constant live power from for your radio? and the switched live? Those two circuits would be the first I check for.

[SoobGoob]

my raido didnt turn on with everything else. only with the key in. i just had an idea it was that because when i installed it a year back some wires touched and sent my car into haywire mode. was thinking it could possiably be that again? is there anyother fuses besides the ones under the steering collum and besides the fuseable links?

[john in KY]

The seat belt thing makes me think the ignition switch or its harness has a short.

[Cougar]

Well the first thing to do in my opinion is to charge the battery up. Then check the current draw on the battery with everything off. You shouldn't see more than 80 milliamps of current draw. If there is more than that then start pulling fuses to see which circuit is pulling the extra current.

 

The horn problem may be the clue to the answer of the problem and checking the steering column wiring would be good. The horn circuit connection is made by grounding the horn switch lead. The automatic seatbeat may be a problem so check that out also.

[Reveeen]

Looking for current draw:

What I do is, with a fully charged battery, disconnect the -, and between it and the battery terminal I put a test light. The light should light very dimly (because of stuff like your clock/radio memory, a "bright" light tells you there is a draw. If brightly lit start pulling fuses/fuesable links until the light stops being so bright, then you have isolated the curcuit that is drawing.

 

As far as what is causing the draw without testing you can only guess.

[SoobGoob]

thanks everyone ell get started on this if i dont buy another soob before hand. i hate wiring and FYI dont do a auto to manual swap. (i think thats what caused the whole problem)

[Numbchux]

it very easily could be the radio wiring. the auto seatbelts get their power on the same circuit as the radio memory, dash clock memory, horn, and hazard lights (I had the clock/horn/hazard fuse blow, and the radio wouldn't remember anything, and the auto seatbelts wouldn't work). pulling the radio isn't too tough, pull it out and check the wiring. especially the memory wire, if it's shorted out somewhere, I imagine it could do a number of funky things.

[SoobGoob]

i know it can do some weird stuff if those wires are crossing. on a different note. were 87 gl's carbed of FI'ed?

[SoobGoob]

Solved. turns out it was a dirty positive terminal. ii feel dumb. but i never would have guessed that with everything the electrical was doing

[Cougar]

Solved. turns out it was a dirty positive terminal. ii feel dumb. but i never would have guessed that with everything the electrical was doing

 

You are right. A dirty battery lead isn't a good thing but it won't cause the problems you described in the original post. Hope the problem doesn't come back.