Electrical/Computer Gremlins. Looking for Bob Bailey

[turbojay]

I'm hoping someone can help me out with this issue. My GN intermeditly dies or the engine bucks while driving or idling. Also the fan come on as soon the key is in the on position even though the temperature is under 165. Also, the alky led light flickers red when this issue is occurring. In the past I have pulled the ECM and reseated the chip after cleaning the terminals. I thought maybe water was getting in there but this car has not seen rain or a car wash in over a year now. The ECM is stock with extender extreme chip and powerlogger installed. Any ideas about how I should troubleshoot this issue? Thanks.


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[TurboBob]

trouble codes? when the engine bucks does the check engine light come on? have you removed and cleaned the powerlogger connections? any physical pressure on the powerlogger board once installed? battery connections, positive connections at the starter, positive cable hitting the header or frame? engine grounds? with the engine idling, wiggle and tug at all the accessible wiring harnesses and see if you get a stumble. make sure there is no corrosion in the ECM main connector. Try to get a powerlogger log of it happening.

 

[czimpel]

I had a similar issue just last week other than the fan thing. I found out the hard way that my charge wire from the alternator was laying on the drivers side header. Almost burned my car up when it finally welded itself to the header.

My Powerlogger log would drop everything to "0" when it would hit for a second.

 

[TurboBuRick]

trouble codes? when the engine bucks does the check engine light come on? have you removed and cleaned the powerlogger connections? any physical pressure on the powerlogger board once installed? battery connections, positive connections at the starter, positive cable hitting the header or frame? engine grounds? with the engine idling, wiggle and tug at all the accessible wiring harnesses and see if you get a stumble. make sure there is no corrosion in the ECM main connector. Try to get a powerlogger log of it happening.

That covers pretty much everything.

 

[turbojay]

That covers pretty much everything.

Thanks Guys. I really appreciate the support. I will go through everything and report back.


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[turbojay]

So it turns out the issue was a broken/loose plug for the fan temperature sensor on the intake. The wire was touching the intake and grounding itself, thus turning the high fan on. This was also causing some other funky electrical issues like causing the alky LED light to flicker red and the engine to stumble every few seconds. Once I pulled the wire away from touching the intake, the fan did not go on with key on, neither did the alky light flicker. New plug has been ordered from Casper's. Thanks to Bob and Rick for the troubleshooting ideas.

 

[GNVenom]

Everyone needs to understand that engine wiring degrading is a major problem in the turbo car. 30 plus years have taken its toll. All the wire within the harness is now permanently oxidized throughout the harness wiring (strip one back, you won't see bright copper anymore). Unsealed connectors have long been damaged due to corrosion (firewall bulkhead, fan, fuel, and AC relays, and several other unsealed parts) and there have been many hacks to the wiring from aftermarket products and modifications. Fuse links have heated and the insulation has shrunk back due to bad original design. Cut one wire and it automatically gets exposed to the elements, causing accelerated damage. You can do patch repairs, but in the end, the main harness has worn out.

Replacement is the only option, albeit a costly one. Those engine harnesses were never meant to last this long. Even the garage queen low-mileage cars are showing signs of permanent damage.

<<end of doom-and-gloom blast>>

 

[turbojay]

Everyone needs to understand that engine wiring degrading is a major problem in the turbo car. 30 plus years have taken its toll. All the wire within the harness is now permanently oxidized throughout the harness wiring (strip one back, you won't see bright copper anymore). Unsealed connectors have long been damaged due to corrosion (firewall bulkhead, fan, fuel, and AC relays, and several other unsealed parts) and there have been many hacks to the wiring from aftermarket products and modifications. Fuse links have heated and the insulation has shrunk back due to bad original design. Cut one wire and it automatically gets exposed to the elements, causing accelerated damage. You can do patch repairs, but in the end, the main harness has worn out.

Replacement is the only option, albeit a costly one. Those engine harnesses were never meant to last this long. Even the garage queen low-mileage cars are showing signs of permanent damage.

<<end of doom-and-gloom blast>>

A new harness is probably in my car's near future. Thanks John for making replacement parts for our cars.


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[GNRick]

John, maybe you would have some insight...my gn would sometimes die during a wide left turn through large intersections. Might happen one out of ten times. Never happened when turning hard into my driveway. Both + and - battery cables had been replaced within the last few years. This has never happened since I installed your engine harness last January. Any thoughts?

 

[GNVenom]

There are internal splices inside the factory harness which were soldered and taped as was all of the 80's stuff. I have seen failures on those connections BECAUSE of soldering. What happens is the solder wicks into the copper and under certain circumstances, where the solder ends and the plain copper begins, there is a potential vibration failure because of hardening of the base metal. The harness is susceptible to this. That might explain the cutout during hard turning, causing a slight flexing on the harness. Typical intermittent problem.

When we build the replacement harness, we go thru great pains to ultrasonically weld those internal splices instead of soldering them. The ultrasonic weld is far superior to the soldered connection. We also eliminate all of the ground internal splices and add extra wire to provide a separate wire for each ground. We also provide five separate fuse links on the positive feeds as opposed to only three on the factory design. Just a couple of weak areas we have addressed. We also install sealed relays to replace the unsealed relays on the factory harness, giving it a longer, trouble-free service life.

I have found quite a few design flaws on the factory harness and have designed around the weak areas. So for the time being, we can still provide a decent replacement harness.

A few of the critical connectors have gone away though; the CCCI connector is now obsolete and no longer available. We use a later version gray connector and have to modify it to work with our coil modules. There are also a couple other early Weatherpacks that are now obsolete. I am hoping that the C100 bulkhead doesn't go obsolete, but eventually it will. Then we're in trouble as there is no substitute for it.

 

[GNRick]

You forgot to mention that your harness eliminates the need for your "field fix" in case the volts light burns out. Kind of a shame that you don't make a harness for the 84/85 cars, but I guess business is business. Oh, I sent you a pm.