Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Electrical

Ok, just recently I have started to have issues with my Contour. Antifreeze is falling down quickly, can't find the leak (Is it possible for engine to get so hot that it steams it off that quickly, other day got it too hot where that happened, but can it happen just from now driving as hard?).

Anyways to my real question, what may be the problem:
Turn signals won't work from lever, but hazards work, heater blower won't work, but engine fan works, and then getting out of park is almost a fear of breaking something because it is locked up. Is something overloading that I can fix? I have checked a few fuses, but any inparticular?

Thanks for the help,
Dan

Check all relays and fuses, in both the engine compartment and footwell box.

I checked fuses, but what about the relays. What would I look for to see if they are good or not; should I use a volt-meter or can you just look at it?
Thanks

it is easy to check a relay all you need is a multimeter that has a oms setting and a 9v battery. pull out the relay you want to check and look on the sides of it intill you see the wireing digrham. 9 times out of 10 you put the 9v battery to the small terminals and see if the restance on the big ones go to zero. you whould also hear a clicking sound when the battery is connected

Thanks for the instructions I will try that out and test the relays inside and under the hood. I will get back to you to let you know how it goes.

Relays are all good in both places, it seems that the three noticable problems have to do with the ignition (The turn signals, heater blower, and park lock). So is there something that I could check that may be related to that. In the steering collumn everything looks fine, no bad wires or anything fried.

Does anyone have any ideas? Or shall I just take it into a mechanic?

I believe there is one fuse in the box under the dash that controls all of those functions. It probably also controls the cruise control and perhaps the reverse back up lights. I just had that problem with a loose fuse. The fuse wasn't blown, but it wasn't making good connection.

Yep that was the problem, but with me the fuse was blown. Now I know that those things are all tied into one fuses that doesn't seem like it would. Is there anywhere on the web that gives exactly what is tied into which fuses? Or is this just an odd case that these were?

The Ford Service Manual for electronics does a pretty good job of showing the wiring schematic for all of the wiring harnesses. It also shows what each fuse controls. I don't believe it will be available anywhere on the web.

Most of the descriptions of the fuses under the dash just say that fuse 23 controls the back up lights, and don't list all of the other things that are also controlled by that fuse.