Page 29 – Sparky's Answers

2000 Buick Century, No Communication With Any Module

This 2000 Buick Century was towed in with a no crank, no run condition. The first course of action is to check codes and data. Only one problem the scan tool will not communicate with the PCM or any other module on the car.

Well somewhere along the way someone else tried to do some testing and really screwed things up. The purple wire, terminal 2 of the DLC had been probed with something other than the proper terminal and a heavy hand was used. This compressed the spring tab in the terminal. With the tab compressed it would not make a connection to the scan tool mating terminal.

Terminal 2 is located on the top row of the connector and two positions from the left side, in the following picture. Click on the picture below to enlarge it.

The terminal was badly damaged so I cut of the old one and spliced on a new terminal.

Data stream was back but the engine still would not start.

I looked for codes and at data in all of the modules and found that there was still no communication with the BCM, body control module.

That is going to be a different post though. Click here to see that repair.

1996 Ford Ranger, Battery Went Dead

This 1996 Ford Ranger wound up at my door with a dead battery. Well almost it was stopped in the median in front of my shop. This is going to be more of a people story rather than an actual repair as I never fixed the vehicle and it is the most simplistic of diagnoses.

I asked the gentleman what happened and his reply was “I was just driving along and it just cranked off”.

Huh? I had never heard that phrase before. I asked again and got the same short reply. I decided I needed another approach, so I asked him what it was doing now? “Nuthin” was the reply.

What do you mean by Nuthin? Does the starter work? “Nope” was the reply this time.

On a guess, my next question was, Do you think the battery might be dead? “Could be, ya know yesterday when I was at Walmart, someone told me I had a belt hanging out, under my truck. I told them is was just the power steerin belt, cause it was kinda hard to turn the steering wheel”. “It drove fine going home last night” “Didn’t give no trouble going to the grocery store this morning” “Just cranked off right out there in the hiway”.

Well needless to say, I really did not want to bother with this guy but I couldn’t just leave him out there in the highway. So I grabbed a jump box and we went out to the truck. I told him to pop the hood latch and crank the engine when I told him to. I looked down and there was no belt. Hooked up the jump box and told him to start it. It started right up.

He shouted out ” Everything looks fine now, I’m gonna go on home” I explained that the belt was missing and he would never make it home, the truck was running off of power from my jump box. I positioned the jump box out of the way of harm under the hood and eased the hood down on top of it. I told him to drive very slowly around to the front of my shop and I would charge the battery. To my surprise he did just that and there was no hood flying up into the windshield.

It is hard to see but the belt operates the alternator and the water pump as well as the power steering and a/c compressor.

I connected the battery charger and instructed him to turn the ignition off.

He got out of the truck and came around to the front of the vehicle where I was standing. The engine was still running and I pointed that fact out to him. “Oh I have to pull a fuse to make it crank off” He reached right in the fuse box and removed the fuse and the engine shut off. That is my hand in the next picture. I thought it might be too rude to take a picture of him doing it.

“Yeah there is a 12 dolla part that is broke in there that lets you crank it off”

“Can’t get No one to put it in for me though” “A fella was supposed to come and do it but he hasn’t showed up yet”

I wonder why? Was my thought.

He looked at me and said ” You reccon I can cripple limp this thing back home after you charge the battery”

How far away do you live?

“Only about 7 or 8 miles”

Sir, your water pump is not working. It needs a belt before you can drive it.

“I’ll have to get a belt and someone to help me put it on”

I know you arer going to be thinking “Sparky you can put the belt on for him, go ahead and get his business”
Sparky does not like being around someone this ignorant and I sure do not want him for a customer. Besides it is so ridiculous to this point I just want to see how it plays out.

Well I continued to charge the battery while he dialed a list of people that might come and give him a ride home. He had to call about four numbers before someone agreed to pick him up. About thirty minutes later he was gone and said he would be back that evening to get it. Well it turned out he could not get everything arranged and called to tell me it would be the next day before he came and got his truck. At the end of the day I put the truck in the back yard and called it a day.

The next morning around 10:00 am he and his buddies showed up. I had already brought the truck around and parked it on the side lot. I still had the keys in my shirt pocket so I met them at the truck and handed them off. I kept an eye on them to make sure they were not going to dump anything in the yard. The hood went up and all three were in there doing something.

I looked out later and the owner was all alone and the other vehicle was gone. I thought this is not looking good. About 45 minutes later the other vehicle was back and all three were at it again. I went about my morning and the next time I looked the truck owner was coming towards me. They need help, imagine that. They did not have an inch and an eighth wrench. I did’t know why they needed such a big wrench but grabbed my set of big wrenches from under my roll around tool box, opened the set up, and handed him the wrench.

I don’t remember needing wrench that big to change the belt, so I positioned my self to see if they were going to try and kill each other with it. They were back under the hood in no time. There was no screams for help so I went back to work.

I heard the truck crank up and the hood come down so I looked up to see if my wrench was coming or going. The truck owner was walking back with it in his hand. This is the part that really threw me. Up until this point I perceived this vehicle owner as challenged to say the least.

He walked over with the wrench. Wiped it clean with a rag. Put it in the correct slot. Rolled up the wrench set and placed them exactly where I had picked them up from. He thanked me and asked how much he owed me. I was so floored by him acting normal and responsible I told him to have a good day.

1993 Ford Ranger Headlights Turn Off

This 1993 Ford Ranger came in with the complaint that the headlights would turn off driving down the road. I wanted to duplicate the problem so I connected my battery charger to the battery and set it on the medium charge rate. Turned the headlights on and waited for the lights to turn off. After six hours they were still on so I started taking things apart to inspect. I removed the phillips headed screws from the lower steering wheel cover

I looked at the wires to see if there was any discoloration of the insulation that would indicate a loose connection.It all looked fine. I went ahead and pulled the top steering wheel cover off as well. It just lifted up with a little bit of maneuvering.

The plan now was to access the headlight switch. The ashtray assembly has to be removed before the trim panel will pull loose.

With the ashtray open there are two 7 mm headed screws. One each side, that have to be removed.

Then the assembly can be pulled out and positioned out of the way.

I was going to remove the radio using the “U” shaped tool I am holding but it would not budge. So I just left it in and pulled the dash trim panel loose.

I left the dash trim panel resting on the steering column to support the weight of the radio. I had enough room to access the 7 mm screws that hold then headlight switch in place.

There was obvious heat damage at the black/red wire (power in for headlight circuit) and the red/yellow wire (power out to dimmer switch). I started the process of changing out the undamaged wires and splicing the damaged wires. a small screwdriver will release the locking tabs that hold the terminals in the plastic connector.

On the new connector, I had already removed all of the wiring except for the ones that I planned to splice in.

On the remaining wires I removed them one at a time from the old connector and installed them into the new connector.

Getting close.

One of the splice connections.

After completing the wiring work I wrapped the harness back up with electrical tape. To buy the connector that I used in this repair please click here.

If you enlarge the following picture you might be able to see the slight heat damage on two of the switch terminals.

To replace the headlight switch the unit has to be disassembled.

First pull the handle all of the way out until it stops.

Then push in the spring loaded button with your thumb as I did in the next picture.

While holding the button in, grab the handle again and finish pulling it from the headlight switch.

Unscrew the bezel nut and separate the switch from the mounting plate. reverse to install.

Snap the harness connector back into place and finish reassembly the dash components.

I prefer to use Motorcraft switches for Ford products as many of the offshore replacements just will not hold up. Just my experience.

2004 GMC Envoy No Crank Condition

This 2004 GMC Envoy came in with multiple electrical complaints. The main complaint was that it had to jumped started any time the engine was shut off. A quick check found that the battery cables were very loose.

After removing the cable ends for inspection an excess amount of corrosion was found. From the way the boot was notched it look like there was another cable lead hooked under this cable at some time.

The positive battery cable end looked even worse.

The bolts were in bad shape as well.

With the bolt and boot cover removed I could see the extent of corrosion on this cable end.

The negative cable end looks a little bit better but it will still need some cleaning.

This is probably the best cleaning tool for cleaning these and other similar cable ends and the battery posts on side post batteries.

All shined up and ready to go back together.

A new insulating boot or cover.

One for each battery terminal.

Cleaned cable ends, new bolt and insulating covers and all of this vehicles problems were corrected.

Well almost, I also had to replace the Mega fuse in the underhood fuse box to restore power to the power windows and some other accessories.

The fuse was blown because someone thought it would be a good idea to jump start the vehicle from this location instead of at the battery terminals. Sometimes it is the simplest of things that need to be corrected to repair a vehicle complaint.

2009 Toyota Camry Changing The Multi Fuse Block

In the last post about this 2009 Toyota Camry, I had diagnosed a blown multi fuse link assembly. To see that post please click here. The next step to repair this vehicle was to remove the battery and battery tray. Once it was out of the way I started unbolting the underhood fuse box assembly. The bottom bolt had been under the plastic battery tray. It can be removed without taking the battery out but the fuse box cannot be disassembled with the battery in place. This same repair also applies to the 2007 year model so my assumption would be that it also applies to the 2008 year model. It also applies to the 2010 year model

There are two bolts along the upper edge as well. All of the bolts have 10mm heads.

Once the bolts are removed, the box still did not want to move very well and I found a peg that had a slight friction grip to the inner fender panel. A little gentle prying exposed the retention tab located towards the rear of the vehicle. Depressing that tab from the rear and pushing it towards the front of the vehicle allowed the tab to come right out.

The next thing I decided to remove was the alternator lead and the three white harness connectors. All of the connectors have latches that have to be depressed before they can be pulled loose. The cable was held on by a 10mm nut.

Once the wiring was loose, the panel that they were connected to would slide up and out of the main fuse box assembly.

Now the bottom bracket had to be removed.

There are two locking tabs that have to be released from the inner slot and then the bracket will slide down and off of the fuse box assembly. You can use a small screwdriver blade to depress the tabs from the outside of the box. The larger cover under the box also has to have it’s locking tabs released because both of the lower pieces have to slide down, out or off of the main box at the same time. I have added some new pictures to hopefully better show how this is done. Notice the vehicle paint color has changed.

The clips that hold the lower cover to the fuse box assembly. There are several that need to be released.

Now that the two halves are separated, the fuse box insert, which also happens to be a forward control body module, needs to be removed from the main fuse box.

After the latches on either end are released the insert will lift up and off of the main fuse box.

It will need to be pulled away from the fuse box to gain better access to the screws holding the multi fuse link assembly in place.

Since this was my first experience with this type of design I took my time and used a mirror to inspect the situation from underneath. I realized that the lower multi link would pull out of the fuse box. The only thing that had it secured was the 10 mm nut that had held the alternator cable in place.

Once that nut and harness assembly was out of the way that multi fuse link assembly can be simply pulled out of the fuse box. I was hoping it would allow access to the bolts that held the other multi link assembly in place.

It did not so I had to attack it from the other side. This cover looks like it will pull out of the way.

I decided to just move it enough to gain access to the mounting screws.

It was a little bit of a pain but not too bad at this point.

A little bit more pulling.

And the multi fuse link assembly was finally out.

The fuse link at the far right of the assembly is the one that had been causing all of the problem. It had been blown when the battery jump box was connected to the battery with the leads reversed.

Reversing the cables will also blow the following fuses and the engine will not run until they are replaced.

Sorry for the blurred picture.

I try to always check a sub miniature fuse circuit with a standard mini fuse in case there is still a short present. The regular mini fuse is less expensive if it blows. After clearing the ciruit as okay I go back and install the correct fuse.

2009 Toyota Camry, No Crank No Run Condition

This 2009 Toyota Camry originally had a very simple bad battery condition but here is the short version of what went wrong. I have come to find out that this problem and it’s repair apply to at least the 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010 year models.

“Hi Dad, the Camry won’t start. It turns over kind of slow.”

“Well son, how do the battery cables look?”

“Kind of green.”

“Go ahead and clean the cable and let me know what happens.”

“Dad, I cleaned the cables but it still won’t crank.”

“Come get my jump box, if it is the battery it should crank up.”

“Dad, I hooked the jump box up and now it won’t do anything.”

“Don’t do anything else, I will help you in the morning.”

Well after a few hours of trying stuff I get the phone call and the story. I figured there was probably a blown fuse but the father said he had checked them all. The found two inside that were blown but that was it. They replaced the blown fuses but still nothing. The dash lights and exterior lights do work though. I went to the underhood fuse box to find the blown high amp fuse that protects may circuits. The fuse box legend showed quite a few higher amp fuses.

When I looked in the fuse box I did not see what I was expecting. Where the fuses should have been there were only two blue strips. Well, I did see a large junction with a stud and nut. I guessed that this might be a battery input to the fuse box. No power at all.

I checked the positive battery terminal and it was reasonably clean and tight. I followed the smaller lead from the positive battery terminal to the side of the fuse box. I also noticed a clear side to the parts that are shaped like blue strips. They could be fuses but there are no test points.

I checked for power at the battery lead to goes inside the fuse box. Power was present so there has to be a problem in the fuse box.

It turned out the blue strips were blocks of multiple fuses. It is kind of a cool from a design point of view. From a service point of view it is possibly one of the most ridiculous fuse designs that I have ever seen. The fuse box has to be disassembled to change the bolted in fuse design. I know for the amperage load it has to be bolted in place but should we really have to take the fuse box apart. By the way it is not easy by any means.

Also the local Toyota dealership does not stock it either. Over the next couple of days I will show how to change this fuse assembly.

The moral of the story to this point is that If your battery is weak and you connect the leads of your dad’s jump box up backwards, be prepared to walk for a few days.

Also a $100 battery replacement now will cost at least $250.

To see how to replace this blown multi fuse link assembly please click here.

2005 Chevrolet Malibu, Changing The Low Beam Headlight Bulb

This 2005 Chevrolet Malibu came in with the driver’s side low beam headlight not working.

It is a pretty simple repair. There are two 10 mm headed screws that hold the headlight assembly to the vehicle.

With the two screw removed the headlight assembly lifts up and off the car. A little wiggling is needed around the outer edge.

The low beam bulb is behind the center cover in the rear of the assembly. It takes a little effort but the cover twists out to the left.

Once the cover is loose it will lift out of the assembly.

The bulb and harness connector also will twist out to the left to release the locking tabs.

A close look at the bulb reveals a damaged element.

Note the two pegs at the bottom of the headlight assembly and the two alignment holes in the body panel.

All back together and working as designed.

2008 E350 Ford Van, Battery Drain

This 2008 Ford E350 van belongs to one of the local utility companies and the battery will go completely dead if it sits for more that two days. The standard routine, I connected my trusty Fluke meter in series with the battery negative post and terminal. There is a significant drain present as you can see in the next picture.

I had already looked under the vehicle for a second battery. It is common for a auxiliary battery to be installed at frame rail under the van. There was no second battery. I started isolating the varying systems and had located three separate drains. Only one significant drain though. It was located on an added cable system that went to the rear of the vehicle. Initially I thought it went to an inverter but Low and behold there was a second battery. It was buried under boxed and stuff. It was also located behind the boom assembly.

I needed to find out of the drain was from the battery or from something else in the rear of the vehicle. There were two cables attached to the negative post. I removed the cables and bolted them together.

I connected a small jumper wire from the cable connection to the battery post.

With the jumper wire in place the drain was present. With the jumper removed the drain went down to a manageable .08 amp draw.

Just for fun I decided to connect my Fluke meter to the second battery. Between the post and the two cables that I had bolted together. I have to admit that a few hours went by before I got to this point but as you can see there is now a 4 amp drain.

I let it sit for another hour and it went to 4.29 amps. The diagnosis was a faulty rear battery that was draining the vehicles primary battery.

A new rear battery and a recharge of the primary battery and this one was fixed. As a quick side not the front battery is an AGM design and when recharging you have to make sure the voltage never goes over 15 volts or the battery will be damaged. There are special chargers just for these batteries but I just connect a meter to the battery terminals while charging and set the charger to a low to medium charge. I glance at the meter as I walk past doing other jobs and adjust the charge rate accordingly.

1996 Ford F350, Battery Voltage Low

This 1996 Ford F350 had multiple problems. One of which was low battery voltage while the engine was running. The owner complained that the battery would go down If he ran at night with the lights and a/c on. Go figure.

At some point the ring terminal at the alternator was damaged and instead of just putting a new terminal on, someone cut the end off of another vehicle and twisted the wires together. To secure it they wrapped electrical tape around it. Not that it wouldn’t do some good under the right emergency conditions, but come on, really. The alternator is rated at 130 amps. There is no way that kind of stop gap connection could carry that kind of load for very long.

I pulled the wiring apart and summed up what i needed to do to fix this cable end. Luckily the cable was long enough and in good enough shape that all it needed was some clean up and a new ring terminal.

The new ring terminal crimped and soldered into place. I also installed heat shrink tubing and a terminal boot cover.

The alternator battery lead back in place on the alternator output stud.

A had to finish tidying up the wires around the alternator and this one was done. Luckily the poor connection had not seemed to of hurt the alternator. At least in the short term.

1996 Ford F350, No Crank Condition.

This 1996 Ford F350 with a diesel engine came in with the complaint that sometimes the engine would not crank. At other times it would crank normally. Luckily for me when I got to it it would not start, almost like there was no battery in the truck. Seemed pretty simple. I connected the clamp of my test light to ground and made sure I had a connection by touching the positive battery post. I also checked at the terminal end to make sure it had a solid connection to the battery post. It was good.

I followed the cable to then starter relay and tested there. No power.

I found a convenient place about halfway down the cable and checked for power. It was present. The problem is between this last test point and the terminal end at the starter relay.

I took the cable end off at the relay fro inspection. It was loose on the cable.

So loose in fact that I pulled it off with my fingers.

I crimped on and soldered a new terminal and then applied the heat shrink tubing.

Installed the new cable end to the starter relay and this part was done.