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Gauges Died; Electrical Issue

S

Snoskier16

CEG'er
Joined
May 22, 2007
Messages
108
Location
Granby, CT
Last week I had noticed that my headlights would dim and brighten with RPM when I had high beams/fogs/fan/radio on. Typical symptoms of an alternator.

Sunday I was on a two hour trip on the highway in the rain (low beams/fogs/radio/fan/wipers) and I noticed that the tach dipped to 0 and quickly went back up to the correct reading. The car drove fine, so I didn't think too much of it. Further down the road, the tach totally died while all other gauges continued to work. Still drove fine, so who needs a tach! About five minutes later my speedometer drops to zero as well. The e-brake light and the airbag lights came on. The wipers were moving much slower than usual. Obviously there was an electrical issue and I assumed that the alternator had bitten the dust. I continued on for a few miles as the car still drove close to normal until when I tried to accellerate it just felt like the engine wanted to stutter with more gas. This was the point that I turned into the breakdown lane to slow to a stop and all the gauges popped back to life. I watched everything very closely for the remainder of the trip, but there were no issues. The trip back home was simmilar in that there were no faults in the car.

Yesterday I tried to replicate the issue with no luck. My battery is 5 years old and could use a replacement, but the loss of gauges shouldn't have anything to do with that. The car cold cranks nice and strong and the alternator is obviously charging. I'm thinking there could be a loose connection/broken wire somewhere? Any ideas?
 
ive had that happen in my turbo car with no wheel wells when the alternator got wet in a good rain dried up all was well
 
typically when a battery is low on voltage the guages and wipers start to act up.

start off by checking the battery voltage at rest and with the engine running. then also run a load test on the battery. check and clean/tighten battery connections as needed.
 
On the way into work this morning the car did the same thing. I got into a parking lot and tried to jiggle the battery connections and everything seemed tight. She started to break up so I shut the engine down. After this, the car wouldn't turn over and would just click like the battery was dead. After some phone calls, I tried to pop-start the car. To my amazement, everything came to life. All gauges, lights, wipers. I drove to Wal-Mart and bought a voltage meter. The voltage with a running engine was about 13v.

I'm thinking a new alternator is in my near future.
 
well 13 volts isn't that bad, but at the same time I would agree its alittle low. my SVT will sit right at 14~14.2 volts after awhile. normally on start up its like 14.7. lowest i have seen is maybe 13.9. however on my SE I only see maybe 14.2 as the best on start up and then it will level out to about 13.8. after time and added load and depending on driving conditions it will get even lower.
 
My car just did this yesterday...Tach, Speedo, Sunroof, Windows, etc...Tried a new battery as I was 20 miles away from home with a sapped 4 year old battery...Brought the car to Autozone and mine was fluctuating to 12.16 at its highest. Confirmed with Autozone that the Alternator is junk. I took an attempt at removing it yesterday and just got p...ssed, so I am shopping around for an install now.
 
I'm now sitting waiting for the tow truck. The car drove about a mile before everything died on me. I'll find out the issue tomorrow and post it up.
 
I'm happy to announce that the SVT is back on the road with a shiney new alternator! That's all the issue was as most of the symptoms pointed to. Now, do you think the engineers ever thought about changing an alternator during the design phase? That was a PITA to get out! Changed the oil while the car was wounded just to experience yet another design flaw!

This has kickstarted my SVT work as I have a few things to do to her. After two years of ownership this is the first thing to break so I'm very happy.

Now, how the hell do you get the gauge cluster out to change a burnt out CEL? I've got to run through emissions and don't want to autofail!
 
There are I believe 5 screws that hold in the bezel that has your center vents/driver's vent. One is below the driver's vent behind the defroster switch, two up in the top of the cluster are, and two below the center vents behind the trim piece/clock. Then I believe there are 5 more holding the bezel into the dash. Also, you can pop out the burnt out bulb from the socket, and IIRC, it is a #164 bulb that will fit in it. Hope this helps.
 
there are 5 screws holding the bezel in. one is under the defroster switch and the other two are behind the clock or the contour panel, depending on what you have. then the cluster itself is held in my 5 screws.

or you could just stop by my place today and I can show you and you can hang out with the rest of NE-CEG
 
Everything went well in changing the indicator lights and I was able to take the dead bug out of the gauge cluster! The previous owner decided to break one of the leads off the CEL bulb so that it didn’t work. I just swapped one out from the O/D Off light and all is well.

The light now works and stays on! I’ve got a P1400 and a P0340 code. :crazy: I’m thinking these sensors have been gone for a while and I’ll just wind up replacing them. I reset the ECU to clear the codes and the light went off, but upon restarting the car, the CEL came back on. I’ll have the codes read again when I leave work today to see if they are the same two.
 
[FONT=arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif]P1400 - [/FONT][FONT=arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif]Differential Pressure Feedback Electronic Sensor circuit Low Voltage.[/FONT]

[FONT=arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif]P0340 - [/FONT][FONT=arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif]Camshaft Position Sensor circuit fault. [/FONT]

yeah there is a good chance that the sensors just need to be changed.

on the cam sensor check the wiring first just to make sure. also check with aircougar as he might have spares around to either use for troubleshooting or to just use as a replacement.
 
BrApple said:
[FONT=arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif]P1400 - [/FONT][FONT=arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif]Differential Pressure Feedback Electronic Sensor circuit Low Voltage.[/FONT]

[FONT=arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif]P0340 - [/FONT][FONT=arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif]Camshaft Position Sensor circuit fault. [/FONT]

yeah there is a good chance that the sensors just need to be changed.

on the cam sensor check the wiring first just to make sure. also check with aircougar as he might have spares around to either use for troubleshooting or to just use as a replacement.
Click to expand...

+1. Read a couple threads just now that said they disconnected and reconnected the cam sensor and the code went away. :laugh:
 
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