Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Weird problems caused by wiring??

This may jump all over the place and may be a bit long but please bare with me here.

I've had all sorts of weird problems with my car since I got it all fixed up from the previous owner (blew motor). One of which was a weird pinging from the engine, wipers didn't work, and the turn signals didn't work.

The pinging engine scared me as I thought maybe the engine I just put in it was crap (with only 42k on it). After searching around and pure luck I found that the wire that plugs into the ground wire thats bolted to the coil pack was showing bare wire and the insulation was stripped. I fixed the wire and then the pinging was gone, wipers worked and the turn signals worked again. WTF is with that?

I've had another small problem with my car with the windows. Whenever I would push the window switches I would hear a buzzing noise from under the passenger dash. Just recently I noticed that the wires coming from the coil pack were cracking so I pulled the covers off and noticed that the brown/yellow, brown/blue and brown/green wires had the insulation stripped and had wrapped together about 5 inches away from the coil pack. Needless to say I replaced all of the wire for the coil pack connection. Upon finishing this I noticed the car had more power (no suprise), but weird enough the buzzing when I hit the window switches is now gone? This is starting to weird me out. I don't understand how these remote systems could be tied into these wires.

One problem that I haven't been able to solve is that whenever I hit the window switch, the ABS brakes kick in or I'm starting out of first gear the lights dim all over the car even the headlights I can tell dim. I would assume this is a grounding issue but I've checked all of the ground wires I know of and they seem fine.

Well if you've made it through all this I appreciate it. Does anyone have any ideas about this stuff. More specifcally how to solve this dimming situation?

Thanks.