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Strange electrical problems after rain

A

amarv12

CEG'er
Joined
May 12, 2002
Messages
196
Location
Michigan
Ok, so i'm experiencing some very strange electrical problems after driving through the rain today.

Before the rain, my car was perfect, everything functioning normal. Tonight after the rain three things are happening:

1. My high speed and low speed cooling fans stay on at all times when the engine is turned on. When you fire the engine up, in about three seconds both cooling fans start up and stay on until you kill the engine.

2 & 3. My wipers and passenger side fog lamp are going crazy....the wipers and passenger side fog lamp (thats right, just the passenger side lamp) turn on every 4 seconds when the key is in the on position (regardless of whether the engine is on or off). So when the wipers get powered up every 4 seconds, they will run for about 1 second and stop at a different spot in their cycle each time. The one fog powers up in unison with the wipers.

I dug into the wiper issue and found that the pulsing is probably a result of the circuit breaker in the interior fuse box...if i touch it i can feel it switching on and off ...what i think is happening is that the circuit must be shorting somewhere and as a result too much current is going through the circuit breaker and it heats up and opens the circuit, then cools and connects the circuit again momentarily and continues on in this way...like a thermal flasher relay. When i pull the circuit breaker out, it stops both the wiper and pass. fog. Along with all this fun stuff the wiper switch no longer does anything, and when you turn on the fogs from the switch only the driver side turns on. What the hell? :help:

Oh and as for the cooling fan issue this happened once before after driving through heavy rain, and the car ended up sitting for about 2 weeks, and the issue went away on its own....at the same time that this happened i had an issue with the passenger side airbag sensor shorting to ground...i couldnt find the short, so at the time i just ended up re-running all the wires from that sensor to the airbag control module in the cabin and fixed it...i know it was a band-aid fix, but i did what i could at the time.

I'm kind of at the point where i'm not sure what to do.

All i could think is that maybe there is a problem in the wiring harness that goes along the fenders and front of the engine bay...seems like within that loom is the wiring for the fogs, airbag sensors, and cooling fans...maybe there is a short within the wiring....maybe i have the deteriorating insulation problem that there was a recall for on the pre98s? my build date is 2/98 though...i really dont know where to go from here. :help: :help: :help:

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! ANY ideas/thoughts/help would be appreciated.
 
Water went into the alternator wiring and it is not charging the battery. You probably have to dry out the wiring. And yes, it is highly likely that you have bad wiring harness. In addition, check if your car is missing the splash shield for the alternator.
 
But i never had a battery light to indicate that the battery is not being charged. I just looked at the voltage with the engine running and it is at 14.5...which is right. The splash shield is in place for the alternator.

When i went out to look at the car this morning, its no longer doing the wiper and fog pulse thing, but the pass side fog is no longer operating...don't know if the bulb has burned out or it is another issue.

What i'm gonna do from here is pull the front bumper off and see if i can find where that wiring harness is run on the front of the engine bay...it looks like it goes into the frame thing. Check and see if i can find any visual corrosion.

Another thing i read about is that apparently the a/c pressure switch can trigger the cooling fans...is that the connector on top of the canister that is located below the battery? Or where is that switch located?

Thanks Tony!
 
Well well, gentlemen, looks like we were right.

Look what i just found:

P1000241Large.jpg


P1000239Large.jpg


Cluster of wires fused and corroded together...oh and four random black wires outside of the friggin loom?...umm, probably not factory...god, wtf happened to this car before i got it?

Now, i'm hoping and wishing that this is the only spot that the wiring is screwed up in...and i hope that as a result of this mess nothing has been permanently damaged....stoopid car. :blackeye:
 
good God that's impressive! hard to believe you couldn't even smell that burning, i know the smell of burning wires so well! just cut them a few inches around the burng, replace the wires, and do a great job insulating them. hopefully, you shouldn't have any other problems.
 
Well, looks like fixing that fixed the car. I cut, soldered, electrical taped, then coated the taped areas with scotch-kote...so hopefully that will be sufficient.

I'm a little worried as to how it happened in the first place though...all that green stuff on the copper, i'm guessing the wires were exposed to water for quite some time...i dunno...hopefully this is the end of all that nonsense. :cool:
 
what appears to have happened is you had one wire that the insulation cracked on and was getting wet. over time that wire corroded. the corrosion increased the resistance. the wire then got too hot due to the increased resistance and melted taking other wires with it. once the insulation was melted you now have several cross shorts.
 
Steeda... said:
Ahhhh The good stuff! Good fix amarv. Do you have pics of the repair?
Click to expand...

Nope, sorry, everything is all taped up and mounted already. I cleaned all the insulation and tape surfaces with rubbing alcohol then coated everything with scotch-kote, so i feel confident about the repair.

striker2 said:
what appears to have happened is you had one wire that the insulation cracked on and was getting wet. over time that wire corroded. the corrosion increased the resistance. the wire then got too hot due to the increased resistance and melted taking other wires with it. once the insulation was melted you now have several cross shorts.
Click to expand...

Ya, but i poked and prodded the insulation in several other spots just to see if cracking might be the cause and it was still strong. Those four other wires running outside of the loom make me wonder....maybe someone probed a wire in that loom at some point to measure voltage and never taped it up, then over the years that i owned the car it corroded and failed in the manner that you said?
 
amarv12 said:
Well, looks like fixing that fixed the car. I cut, soldered, electrical taped, then coated the taped areas with scotch-kote...so hopefully that will be sufficient.

I'm a little worried as to how it happened in the first place though...all that green stuff on the copper, i'm guessing the wires were exposed to water for quite some time...i dunno...hopefully this is the end of all that nonsense. :cool:
Click to expand...
the green stuff is just oxidation, it looks like it's been that way for atleast a couple weeks. this could have been caused by a temporary voltage regulator problem, too small gauge wiring, or maybe an issue with aftermarket electronics installed.

just keep a close eye on it over the next couple weeks. maybe, if you can reach it without removing the bumper again, feel it before you shut the car off to see if it's getting hot.
 
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