2005 Buick Lesabre, Gas and Temperature Gauges Erractic

This 2005 Buick Lesabre Custom came in with the complaint that the fuel and temperature gauges were not working properly.

Since the gauges had gone way past the high marks and were circling back around, I was pretty sure the stepper motor in the gauges were failing. I did do some testing with my Tech 2 scan tool just to be sure though.

The first step in removing the instrument cluster is to pull the knee bolster trim panel from under the driver’s side of the dash.

I used a plastic pry bar to get a good square pull on the headlight switch trim panel. I know to be extra careful with this step as it is easy to break the switch lose from the trim panel.

You can see that there a spring clip at each end of the trim panel. The headlight switch of course needs to be unplugged.

To remove the right hand trim panel, the three phillip’s headed screws at the top and right side have to be removed.

You could take the time to remove the whole glove box but I found it easy enough to just flex the glove box enough for the trim panel to release from behind it.

There are several spring clips along the way as I removed it. I started from the far right and worked my way back to the steering column area.

I did some other needless work and then realized that all I had to do was to remove the two 13 mm nuts from the upper end of the steering column.

Doing this allows the steering column to drop down enough so that this one 7 mm headed screw can be removed.

There is another 7 mm headed screw at the far right of the instrument cluster trim panel.

Then it was just a matter of taking my time and carefully releasing the spring clips along the way.

The little bit that the steering column will drop down with the two 13 mm nut off is enough to remove the trim panel.

There are four lever latches that hold the instrument cluster to the dash carrier.

It takes a bit of maneuvering to pull the cluster out. The steering column has to be pulled down some and the upper dash pad has to be flexed upwards.

Well the cluster is out and in the next article I will show how to change the stepper motors.

2004 Buick Century, Battery Goes Dead

This 2004 Buick Century came in with the complaint that the battery would go dead overnight. I disconnected the battery negative cable and connected my trusty Fluke multimeter in series between the negative battery post and a good chassis ground. I had already set the meter up to read DC amps. One lead was in the common port and the other in the 10 amp port. Initially there was a nominal 2.5 amp drain on the system.

That quickly faded away as the interior lights turned off and the computers went to sleep. On some vehicles this can take a full hour. After more than an hour I was left with about a .4 amp drain.

The customer had mentioned that the power seat also had a problem with not working all of the time. I wanted to check the circuit breaker to see if there was a common issue there. The circuit breaker is located in the interior fuse box on the passenger side of the dash.

The power seat circuit breaker is the one on the top of the fuse box. A quick  touch and I found that the circuit breaker was warm. I used a pair of pliers to pull it out of the fuse box because sometimes they are much hotter than they initially appear to be.

Looks like the circuit breaker has been an issue for a while. I was kind of surprised the vehicle had not caught on fire.

I located the shorted harness under the rear of the driver’s seat. The customer did not want to fix the short at this time so I was only able to get a picture by using a mirror. The end of one of the seat springs had punctured the harness and would short out with changes in pressure and temperature.

I left the circuit breaker out so the car would not catch on fire or have a dead battery.

I could hear things moving around inside the circuit breaker so I decided to take it apart and see what it looked like. A bunch of burnt up stuff.

Until the customer decides to bring this one back for repairs, this one is fixed as good as it can be.

2008 Chevrolet Silverado, Driver’s Power Door Lock Does Not Work Part Two

This 2008 Chevrolet Silverado came in with the complaint that the driver’s power door lock does not work. I had already repaired the problem with the driver’s door lock switch not working at all. to see that repair please click here. Since the switch was now working properly, the next step was to check the door lock actuator. This means removing the door panel. The switch and pull handle were already removed in the last article so the next step was to remove the manual door lock knob. There is a small locking plate that has to be pried out slightly.

Then the knob will slide up and off the rod.

Next the panel behind the interior door handle is removed as shown below.

There is a 10 mm headed screw behind the panel.

There is a semi circle extension and a peg that will only allow the trim cover to install in one direction.

There is another trim panel behind the armrest pull handle and i is removed as shown below.

Two more screws with 10 mm heads.

The door panel then has to be grasped allow the edged and puled to released the push pin retainers. Be careful to support the door panel as there is a cable that connects the interior handle to the door latch mechanism.

The retaining tabs have to be pushed in  as I am showing in the next picture. Of course you have to work upside down and backwards in a hole that you have to approximate the position of the tab that has to be depressed.

Once the tabs are pushed in the cable housing will release form the handle assembly.

Then rotate the inner cable through the slot to align with the slot in the handle. Then the ball can be removed from the socket.

The moisture barrier/sound deadening panel will have to be pull from the rear half of the door. Do not tear or damage the panel as it is important to the life if the door panel components.

The harness connector for the door latch/actuator assembly removes by lifting the burgundy colored bar and then sliding the connector from the latch assembly.

I check power across the tan and grey wires that I am showing in the next picture while activating the power door lock switch. The wires that I am referring to are the ones that are closest in the picture. I state this as there are more than one set of tan and grey wires in this connector. Knowing that the ground and power signals were present told me that the actuator in the latch assembly was indeed faulty

To remove the actuator the three mounting screws have to be removed.

The most difficult part of this repair is removing and installing this “E” clip that holds the linkage to the door lock cylinder. In retrospect I think it may have been easier to remove the lock cylinder from the exterior door handle.

Once the mounting screws and internal linkage is disconnected the actuator can be removed from the door. It does take a little maneuvering to get it past the window regulator. Speaking of which I did remove the attaching nut and bolt that holds the rear leg of the window regulator to the door. It gave me the extra 1/4″ of room I needed to get may hand on the “E” clip.

The old latch assembly with the linkage rods attached. I had to transfer the linkage rods from the old actuator to the new one on the right side in the picture below.

These two plastic plugs were removed to get better access to the “E” clip.

I had to look through holes while using long screwdrivers to remove and install the “E” clip.

I did use a telescoping magnet to keep from losing the “E” clip when I was removing and that worked quite well. However when I was trying to install the “E” clip I dropped it into the door. I had to magnetize an old hacksaw blade in order to retrieve the “E” clip from the bottom of the door.

Another one fixed.

2008 Chevrolet Silverado, Driver’s Power Door Lock Switch Does Not Work

This 2008 Chevrolet Silverado came in with the complaint that the driver’s power door lock switch would not work the door locks. The passenger side switch works but only the lock on the passenger side door.

I needed to check signals at the power door lock switch on the driver’s door but some dis assembly was needed. The interior pull handle has to be removed before the switch can be. The insert can be lifted on the end.

Or on the side.

I lifted it at both positions. Once it was out far enough, I had to slightly depress the tab as you cane see below.

After the tab was released the insert came the rest of the way out with little resitance.

There are two 10 mm headed screws that hold the pull handle in place. One upper as shown below.

And one lower screw.

It should be noted that the bolts have shoulders on them and should not be mixed with other bolts in the door panel.

Now that the pull handle was removed and out of the way, I used a plastic pry bar to lift the switch panel from the door. I started at the front edge first.

Then I lifted the rear of the panel up to release all of the spring clips.

Note the spring clip at the front of the switch panel.

I was pretty sure that I had found the problem when I spotted the light corrosion. You may need to click on the next picture and enlarge it for a better view.

To test I used a fused jumper wire with the correct size terminal to briefly connect the black wire to the pink/black wire. This made the passenger side door lock. Connecting the black wire to the orange and black wire unlocked the passenger side door.

This told me several things.The driver’s side wiring was okay except for the corrosion issue. The driver’s side power door lock switch was indeed faulty and there is yet another problem with the driver’s door lock actuator. To see the information on replacing the faulty door lock actuator please click here.

I used a nylon bristle brush and some gentle elbow grease to clean the corrosion from the harness connector and terminals. I inspected the terminals closely and determined that there was no real problem here. The real problem was inside the power door lock switch. A thorough cleaning, some dielectric grease and a new switch and this part of the problem would be fixed.

2000 Dodge Caravan, Changing The Alternator Brushes.

This 2000 Dodge Caravan with a 2.4 liter engine came in with the complaint that the battery light was coming on. The battery had not gone dead at this time but the customer was concerned. I finally got it to act up long enough to determined it was worn brushes in the alternator.

The first step in removing the alternator is to remove the coolant overflow bottle. After removing the 10 mm headed screw, it will lift up enough to remove the hose.

The attaching bolts that hold the alternator in place have 15 mm heads. The adjustment bolt has a 13 mm hex head.

The battery lead is held on with a 10 mm nut. I had to reach under the intake to remove it. There is also a harness connector that need to be disconnected from the rear of the alternator.

The bottom fastener is a bolt and nut and requires accessing under the intake also. You can barely see my arm behind the radiator support.

With the bolt removed the alternator can now start moving towards the passenger fender area.

Underneath the radiator hose.

It takes a little bit of twisting and rolling around to get the alternator up through the hole.

Now that the alternator is off of the vehicle, it is time the change the brushes. I removed the 10 mm nut and insulator from the battery output post.

An 8 mm socket will remove the remaining nuts and one screw that hold the SRE (slip ring end) cover on the rear of the alternator. Not the small ground strap that I am holding in the next picture.

There is a dust cover that is normally stuck to the inside of the SRE cover. I find it best to leave it untouched.

There are three phillip’s headed screws that hold the brush holder in place. It is important to use a good #2 phillip’s screwdriver. The screw heads are very easy to strip out and that will cause a lot of grief.

The dull coloring of the upper slip ring is a clear indicator of a brush making poor contact.

I cleaned the slip rings with some emery cloth and checked to make sure the slip ring was not worn through to the plastic.

The worn out brush holder assembly.

Note how much longer the brushes are in the new brush holder assembly. If you need one of these bush holder assemblies please click here. 

A small screw driver works well to hold the brushes back far enough to install the brush holder assembly over the slip rings.

The brush holder installed.

Do a quick wire brushing to make sure that all of the ground contact points are clean. Make sure you have a good wire brush with no loose bristles. A loose bristle can leave a short in the alternator. I installed the SRE cover and tightened all of the screws and nuts.

One last thing to do. There is a movable bushing in the SRE housing that made the alternator removal difficult at best. It will make installation nearly impossible if not moved slightly.

A well placed socket, A good pair of pliers and a lot of elbow grease will move the bushing. I normally do this in a vise but it would be difficult to get a good picture of everything and most people do not have a bench vise.

Of course I also tested the alternator on my test bench. Since most of you will not have one of these I did not bother with the pictures and explanations. You might be able to get a local parts store to test it for you before you install it though.

2004 Volvo XC90, Changing The Lower Tail Light Bulbs

This 2004 Volvo XC90 came in with multiple complaints and I was just about to call it done after fixing the lower stoplights when I noticed something about the light bulbs in the clear portion of the tail light assemblies.

On the driver’s side the outer bulb is amber in color (turn signal) and the inner one is clear (backup light)

On the right side both bulbs in the clear section are amber.

Guess someone was confused or only had amber bulbs. Anyway, the rear floor cover has to be removed as the first step to the bulb replacement.

One hook to be undone on either side and the panel will lift up.

You can remove the whole panel or just lean it against the back seat.

Lift the little corner wedge from the floor panel.

Lift the side panel slightly and pull the bottom towards the center of the vehicle. Then drop the whole panel down slightly to release the upper retainers.

There are two long 10 mm nuts that hold the tail light assembly to the vehicle. One lower.

The other is higher.

See what I mean about being a long nut?

The light assembly will then wiggle loose from the back of the vehicle. I turned the socket assembly counter clockwise to release it form the light housing.

I turned the light bulb counter clockwise to remove it from the socket as well. I installed the correct bulb and reassembled the rear of the vehicle.

Another one done.

2004 Volvo XC90, Lower Stoplights Do Not Work

This 2004 Volvo XC90 came in with multiple problems and this one was that the lower stopllights do not work. The upper CHMSL works. Of course the problem cold have been that both lower bulbs were blown but I had checked one side when I had the light assembly off for another reason. Since the CHMSL was working I knew that I did not need to check the stoplight switch or the input to it.

I also took a minute to look at a wiring diagram and knew that all of my test points were located at the rear of the vehicle. The first step is to lift the rear floor cover and move it out of the way. There are two cable hold downs on either side with slots in them.

They have to be moved so that the larger hole will lift off of the peg.

Then the whole panel can be moved out of the way.

There is a small wedge piece to the left side of the vehicle.

It lifts up and out of the floor.

Now by lifting up and pulling slightly to the center of the vehicle the side panel will move. Then it has to be dropped down about an inch for the upper retainers to come free.

Now we can access the rear fuse/relay box for testing.

With the brake pedal depressed, fuse number D14 should have power on it. It does not so we have to do further testing. It receives it’s power from the contact terminal #3 of the stoplight relay. It also passed through the brake light shunt on it’s way from the relay to fuse #14. By the way there is a fuse position label on the rear edge of the fuse box.

Fuse D3 should have power on it at all times and it does. It supplies power to one of the contact terminals of the stop light relay. Terminal #5.

I could not find the location of the brake light shunt so I concentrated my efforts on the stoplight relay. I did not want to take the whole inside of the vehicle apart to access the relay so I cheated a little. I lifted the upper lock for the fuse box.

Then pushed it towards the outside of the vehicle. This gave me a little bit more room but not quite enough.

I folded up a cloth fender cover to protect the plastic and used a long pry bar to gain a little bit more room.

The stoplight relay is the blue one in the next picture. I am assuming the long thin plastic pieces installed in the fuse box are the various shunts for the vehicle systems but my information software does not identify them. They appear to be relatively fragile so do not apply pressure to them. Also the relays are very difficult to pull out of the fuse/relay box. I had to first remove the relay above the stoplight relay before I could get a good enough grip to remove it. Even then it took several tries and some painful finger tips.

I did prevail against the relay and was successful in removing it without having to remove more interior panels.

The old relay on the left and the new relay from the Volvo dealership on the right. Even though both parts are made in Portugal they have different part numbers and design variations. The most obvious of which is the color. The blue one has the word Volvo on it and the black one has FoMoCo on it.

The relay installs in this position in the fuse/relay box. The two larger terminals towards the front of the vehicle.

The new relay installed. It was much easier to push it back in than it was to pull the old one out. I also re installed the other relay that I had removed earlier.

We now have power on the D14 with the brake pedal depressed.

Now the lower stoplights work as they should.

On to the next problem.

2004 Volvo XC90, Changing A Blown HID Headlight Bulb

This 2004 Volvo XC 90 came in with the driver’s side headlight not working. This particular vehicle has HID headlights.

There are two retaining bars that hold the light assembly in place.

They simply lift and slide out of the slots in the rear of the headlight assembly. There are slight detents but it takes a minimal amount of force to lift the bars up. Do take note of the yellow warning label. This is a high voltage system that can cause bodily harm or even death. Make sure the system is off before working with the system.

With the retaining or locking bars removed the light assembly will wiggle loose from it’s perch. I recommend using a soft cloth to lay under the lens area when the light assembly is inverted.

The large round cover will twist counter clock wise.

After it has been turn to it’s stopping point the cover will lift off.

It takes a little coordination and finger strength to remove the connector from the silver ballast assembly. I tried lifting the ballast/bulb assembly out before unplugging the connector but found it more difficult.

Now that the harness is disconnected I can turn my attention back to removing the ballast/bulb assembly. Note the wire retainer that holds the assembly down.

Each end of the wire retainer needs to be unhooked from hold down bars. Then the two ends can be lifted and rotated back to get the retaining wire assembly out of the way.

Although I am not doing a great job of it in the next picture try to lift the assembly as straight as possible. Also remember to not touch the glass portion of the light assembly with your fingers. If the old bulb is blown, there will be no detriment to the bulb if you do touch it. However I feel it is good practice to get the feel of removal and installation without touching the glass. It will get you prepared for the real deal of installing the expensive new bulb. I actually remove and install the assembly several times to make sure I can do it without error.

Note the position of the notches in the black plastic ring of the bulb. The new bulb must be oriented in the same position. If not the assembly cannot be properly installed in the headlight assembly. I am sure you can guess how I know that.  Hold the ballast base with one hand and grasp the plastic ring on the bulb base. Rotate it counter clock wise. There are some detents rotate past. Once the bulb base will rotate no more, pull the bulb from the ballast. Only by holding the plastic base though. Reverse the procedure to install the new bulb in the ballast base. Make sure it is fully installed. You should feel a slight click as the bulb is rotated to it’s stopping point.

If you click on and enlarge the next pictures you should be able to see the hairline cracks in the glass. The cracks allow the inert Xenon gas to escape and the subsequent bulb failure.

Make sure the assembly goes in fully. It should take some effort to hook the retaining wires but it should not be excessive. The wire  retainer may become dislodged and fall out somewhere in the process but do not be alarmed. Just make sure it is fully hooked at all four contact points.

Put it all back together and we now have light.

It is a bit of a guessing game on determining if the bulb is blown or if the ballast is faulty. I am not a fan of inserting individual test leads into small high voltage connectors. The cracks in the glass are a fair indicator of a  blown bulb. For good measure though I removed the other light assembly (it was working). I then took the bulb only, not the ballast and installed it in the ballast and assembly in question. It all worked so I knew that changing the bulb only would fix this problem.

2004 Volvo XC90, Battery Goes Dead Overnight

This 2004 Volvo XC 90 T6 AWD came in with the complaint that the battery would go dead overnight. Sometimes it would go dead  while the customer was at work.

The battery is located in the rear of the vehicle under the floor. At the tailgate there is a removable floor panel that covers this steel panel. Two bolts and one nut, all 13 mm.

Now a plastic cover has to be lifted away.

At the negative battery terminal I loosened the 10 mm nut and slide the terminal slightly up, so that I could connect one lead of my multimeter to the battery post and the other to the cable terminal.

After the leads were secured I lifted the battery cable and terminal from the battery post. Making sure to keep the connections with my multimeter intact.

One lead of my meter is connected to the COM port and the other to the 20A port. The dial is set to DC amps. Of course all leads were properly connected to the battery terminals and the multimeter ports before I separated the battery terminal from the battery post. Well with and amperage draw of almost 8 amps it is easy to see why the battery goes dead.

After a minute or two the amperage draw went down to about 4 amps.

After about 5 minutes the draw went down to about one amp. and stayed there.

While the amperage was high I circled the vehicle, looked and listened. I found that the vacuum pump located behind the driver’s headlight area was running. I am pointing to it the the next picture.

I did not see a listing for the vacuum pump in the underhood fuse box so I looked at the legend for the fuse box located at the driver’s side end of the dash. I found that the power steering and the vacuum pump are both powered by fuse #16. I took the liberty of looking at a wiring diagram to see where fuse #16 receives it’s power from. I noted that fuses 16 and 17 are both supplied power from the Overload Relay 15-Feed.

I checked and fuse #17 has power on it when the key is off.

Fuse #16 also has power on it with the key off. I make the point of showing the key with power present because the relay that supplies power to the two fuses is controlled by the ignition switch. In other words there should only be power on these two fuses with the ignition key on and the relay working correctly. Key off turns the relay off and cuts the power to the two fuses.

The relay is located behind the driver’s side of the dash. There are two torx screws that have to be removed from the underdash hush panel.

The panel will then unsnap and pull down from the dash. The small closeout at the OBD2 connector also has a spring clip and plastic retainer that have to be dislodged as well.

There are two load carry relays in the electrical center under the dash and I decided to replace both at the same time. The relay I knew was faulty is the 15-Feed Overload Relay. The other relay is the X-Feed overload Relay.

Both relays are shown at the upper left side of the next picture. Counting from the top left of the box and going straight down, the first position is empty. The second position holds the X-Feed Overload Relay and the third position is where the 15-Feed Overload Relay is located. By the way when I started to remove the relay it clicked off and the drain was gone. The contacts had been stuck closed.

Now there is no power on fuse #17.

No power on fuse #16 either and of course it should not be as  the key is in my hand.

The battery drain is down to a more than acceptable .01 amps.

If the X-Feed Overload Relay had been stuck on fuses 8, 9, 10 &11 would have had power on them at all times.

1995 Toyota Celica, Starter Clicks But Will Not Crank

This 1995 Toyota Celica came in with the complaint that the starter would click but not turn the engine over. The problem was intermittent but getting more frequent according to the customer. I was expecting to find a  worn plunger and contacts inside the starter but the starter had recently been replaced. If you think you have contact and plunger issues please click here for more information on that subject.

You will need to click on the following pictures to enlarge them for a better view of the problem. Look carefully at the coloring of the nut that holds the battery cable to the starter post, especially the washer under the nut.

You can see some discoloration of the cable terminal in the next picture.

Even though the next picture is blurry you can clearly see the change in color from the area near the crimp to the upper end of the ring terminal.

Anytime you see discoloration of a fastener on the upper side there is bound to be a deeper problem on the underside.

The coloring of this nut is what I was seeing as I looked up at the starter. Pretty clear this was the problem.

I cleaned the cable terminal and installed a new nut and lock washer.

The tool I used to clean the cable end. I get these here.

Since I was already in cleaning mode, I went ahead and cleaned the battery terminals as well. I cheated on this one though. After a light wire brushing I finished cleaning it in my glass bead cabinet.