Electrical Problems

[jonv]

Having a few electrical problems. First off, I'm not super smart about cars, I just know some stuff, so please dont assume I'm a big mechanic, lol.

Ok, down to the problems. Horn doesnt work, I swapped relays with one of the ignition relays and it still wouldnt work. So where do I go from there? Check for an actual horn on the car? I'm going to do that tomorrow, its late now, and I dont have a shop to play in. Any other suggestions for the horn issue are welcome.

Next, when I open the doors of my car, the dome light does not come on. But, if I leave the door open, and turn the car over it will come on. Or if I leave the door open and turn the actual lights on the dome light will come on. Any ideas? I also need a light switch knob if you know where I can find one, lol...Using needle nose pliers right now .

Next, the clock quit working. It used to, but now it doesnt. I'm guessing I could check the voltage at the wires coming into the clock with a meter to make sure the wiring is all good?

Lastly (for now - I think) is the fog lights. When I push the button to turn them on the little LED inside the switch comes on, but no lights outside the car, haven't worked since I acquired the car. Where do I need to start checking things? Check the bulbs first I assume?

Again, I'm shooting in the dark here...Just point me on the right way if you dont mind. Lol. Any and all help is welcome. Thanks in advance!

-Jon

 

[donjohn]

check your fuses first and foremost with a testlight. I.E. get a testlight, open the fuse boxes under the driver's interior dash on the left ubove the kick panel and the one under the hood on the driver's side. You hook the aligator clip to a ground bolt (they're usually green- or stick the key in the ignition and clip it to that) then check both terminals of each fuse and if one side lights up and the other doesn't, it's a bad fuse

 

[HISSIN50]

After checking all fuses (great advice):

At the horn relay (under the hood), probe the terminals in the relay socket while a friend pushes the horn button. Note what you are missing. I have a hunch it will be the ground pulse on the control side (coil) of the relay. This comes from the horn switch in the steering wheel itself. Post up what you are missing and we can tell ya which way to go (the relay is like a 4 way stop in the road - it's a good place to check values so you dont have to trace every leg of the entire circuit).

Does the dome light work if you use the other door instead?

For fogs, I would check power and ground at the bulbs themselves (as you said). If no go, I would go back to the switch and look for power in and power out with the switch closed. Go from there.

Good luck.

 

[jonv]

Thanks everyone, going to mess with this tonight or today between classes.

When you say probe the terminals of the relay what exactly do you mean? How do I do this?

Sorry if that seems like a dumb question. But I'm a bit clueless, lol.

Thanks for all the input, hopefully I'll have time to mess with it all today. Thanks!!!

EDIT: Should I go ahead and replace all of my fuses? They look a bit old, not sure when they were last replaced, if ever. I pulled one of the fuses and the terminals inside the box looked a bit worn. Is it easier to replace the box, or just try to clean the terminals? If I should just clean them how do I go about doing so? Just wondering if bad connections could be causing some of these little problems.

Also, I opened the passenger door instead of the driver side door and the dome light still didnt come on.

 

[HISSIN50]

Thanks everyone, going to mess with this tonight or today between classes.

When you say probe the terminals of the relay what exactly do you mean? How do I do this?

Sorry if that seems like a dumb question. But I'm a bit clueless, lol.

Thanks for all the input, hopefully I'll have time to mess with it all today. Thanks!!!

EDIT: Should I go ahead and replace all of my fuses? They look a bit old, not sure when they were last replaced, if ever. I pulled one of the fuses and the terminals inside the box looked a bit worn. Is it easier to replace the box, or just try to clean the terminals? If I should just clean them how do I go about doing so? Just wondering if bad connections could be causing some of these little problems.

Also, I opened the passenger door instead of the driver side door and the dome light still didnt come on.

Fuses dont have a useful lifespan, meaning I would not replace them for the sake of replacing them.

Gonna have to think about the dome light issue.

For the horn, when I had no horn, I grabbed my DMM (a voltmeter) and checked the terminals on the relay. IIRC, two terminals should be constantly hot. Then when the horn button is pressed, another terminal goes hot along with the 4th terminal showing ground.

The ground is the signal from the horn button and is needed to energize the relay (to make that last terminal show power, which is the power to the horns themselves). I think you might end up missing that ground pulse.
If so, one can adjust the horn button setting. My old steering wheel had worn contacts so I had to shim the horn contacts at the back of the airbag (or I had to put my fist through the air bag to sound the horn. I think a previous owner had road-rage issues).

Anyhow, just check that relay and post back what each terminal reads (remember to put your meter on the Ohms setting to check the ground pulse).

Good luck.

 

[jonv]

Mkay, tested the voltage at the fog lights and they read voltage, so I'm guessing the blubs are bad.

Now, the horn. I pulled the relay out, and this is what I was looking at.
View attachment 479102

Now, for explination purposes, lets say the top terminal is A, the right is B the bottom is C and the left is D. Make sense? Ok. Now I took a test light and connected my aligator clip to a ground, and then tested each terminal. A and D both lit the test light, while B and C did nothing. I took a volt meter and put the positive connector on A and the negative connector on C and read roughly 12v. I then connected the positive end to D and the negative end to B and nothing. So, then I left the positive end on D and put the negative end on C and read 12v again. Decided to test that B terminal once more, connected the positive end to A and the negative end to B, and read nothing. So, does this mean that the B terminal is a bad ground? Does all of this mess make sense? Or shall I try to explain again?

Anyway, I popped open my steering wheel to take a look inside. I have no idea what it should look like, but here are some pics of what it did look like.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c373/ridler04/IMG_0617.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c373/ridler04/IMG_0618.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c373/ridler04/IMG_0619.jpg

Does anything look weird inside there? The only thing I didnt do today was check for an actual horn on the car. I know its in the driver side fender somewhere, but I ran out of light before I even started to test all of this stuff. Probably take a look at that tomorrow if I have enough time.

Also, I was testing the fuses inside the power distribution box, and the bottom left fuse (blue 15) didnt make my test light come on. Removed the fuse and it looked ok, so I tested the terminals inside the box, and the light still didnt come on. Any ideas? And what is that fuse for?

By bottom left I'm assuming you're in the front of the car, looking towards the rearend.

Thanks for all the help guys. I still need to test the fuses inside the car, just didn't get around to it, lol. Hopefully run back out there tonight and do it, problem is I'm exhausted, lol. Anyone wanna come to middle tn and work on my car??

-Jon

 

[jonv]

Updates
Horn: I found the horn inside the driver side fender, ran a hot wire from the + battery terminal down to the positive side of the horn...it made a really weird sound, instead of an actual honk. So, does that mean the horn is kinda bad anyway and I need a new one?

Fuses: Found two blown fuses, and another fuse that didnt light on either end (such as the blue one I mentioned inside the power dist. box). It too was blue 15, and idk how to explain where it was, lol. If I had a diagram I could point it out probably, going to look through my Chilton book. The two blown fuses were both red, forgot the amperage. But I had one so I still need to replace the other. The one I did replace fixed my clock, yay! Lol.

Mkay, I think thats all I'm working on tonight, but keep the ideas coming. Oh, and anyone have suggestions on the dome light issue?

Thanks for everything!

 

[HISSIN50]

Do you have a DMM or any sort of volt/ohm meter? A test light is less than ideal for this particular testing since it's nice to see which terminal should go to ground when the horn button is pressed (in other words, which of D or C goes to the horn button).

If you dont have one, I suppose a test light could be used (connect one lead to 12 volts and one to one of the two terminals. You need someone to hit the horn to close that part of the circuit [pushing the horn button sends ground to the appropriate terminal]. If the light illuminates, you have a ground pulse from the horn). I dont think the wattage of a test light should overburden anything, but since I have not personally used a test light, I wanted to put a disclaimer in there. A meter is best for this purpose.

In your pic, you can see butt connectors. It looks like someone farted around with your horn button already. In oem form, the black wiring connector at about 11PM is the one for the horn.

You are getting close - a little more testing should have you up and runnin. The thing is that whether or not the horns are bad, if you know the power is being distributed correctly to/from the relay, that leaves the horn, and the wiring from the relay to the horns remaining. And given the splices I see in the steering wheel, I would want to really trace the electrical side before tossing money at horns.

FWIW, when the relay is running properly, A and D will still have their power, but either D or C will show ground when the horn button is pressed. And the remaining terminal will show 12 volts when the horn button is pressed.

You mentioned desiring to know what fuses were what. Here is a diagram of the underhood and under dash fuses.

If I wasnt several states away, I would be happy to come lend a hand. Within a few mins we would have this fixed.

Good luck!

 

[jonv]

Yeah, I've got a volt meter. I'll test with that today if I get the chance.

You should juse pack on up and move here, lol. There is a lot of work to be done to my car.

Thanks for the diagrams, and thank you for all of your help. I really appreciate it.

I'll let you know what I come up with tonight.

-Jon

 

[jonv]

Ok, I'm not sure if I did this test right or not. But here is what I did.

Just for rememberance purposes, A and D both read 12v. While B and C do not show voltage.

Now, I set the meter up for a continuity test, and connected the black tester to the ground on my battery, and connected the red to each of the four terminals. A, B, and D all did nothing, but C made the meter beep continuously, and display 2.5 on the digital read out.

I did this both while someone held the horn down, and without them holding the horn, with the same results.

Hope I did this right, lol. It's been a long time, I'm talking like 5 years since I've used a DMM, so I'm not sure.

Let me know if that info helps, or if I did it completely wrong, or what. Thanks!

-Jon

 

[The Green GT]

I got a billet headlight knob and I have the stock one in my room. I can sell it to you for like $5 shipped.

EDIT: I think I have a wiring diagram that I will look at and see if there are any particular wires you need to look at.

 

[jonv]

Cool deal, sent you a PM. Any and all help is appreciated and welcome! This place is awesome!!

-Jon

 

[jonv]

bump

 

[jstang94gt]

jonv: I've been having very similar problems, the exact same thing with the horn and the fog lamps, so thanks for the post. Some awesome info from everyone.

 

[jonv]

What was the fix for yours? I'm still having issues.

 

[mo_dingo]

Ok, I'm not sure if I did this test right or not. But here is what I did.

Just for rememberance purposes, A and D both read 12v. While B and C do not show voltage.

Now, I set the meter up for a continuity test, and connected the black tester to the ground on my battery, and connected the red to each of the four terminals. A, B, and D all did nothing, but C made the meter beep continuously, and display 2.5 on the digital read out.

I did this both while someone held the horn down, and without them holding the horn, with the same results.

Hope I did this right, lol. It's been a long time, I'm talking like 5 years since I've used a DMM, so I'm not sure.

Let me know if that info helps, or if I did it completely wrong, or what. Thanks!

-Jon

A and D appear to be 12V+ constant. I don't know why both are constant 12V+, that doesn't make any sense to me, as it's redundant. C appears to be ground constant. B is the only terminal that appears to be neither. My guess is B is the wire going to the switch inside the steering wheel. See if you have continuity between B and that wire. Or, see if you get 12V+ or ground at C when you press the horn switch. It could be 12V+ or ground, depending on what the horn needs to complete the circuit.

But on a standard 4pin relay is as follows; one is 12V+ constant, one is ground, one is input (i.e. wire coming from switch, either 12V+ or neg), and the other is the output to the device, the horn in this case, which activates the horn.

Since we have 2 sources of 12V constant, I am confused and cannot help. Maybe someone else can chime in here.
Scott

 

[HISSIN50]

A and D appear to be 12V+ constant. I don't know why both are constant 12V+, that doesn't make any sense to me, as it's redundant.

Scott, the horn relay feeds 12 volts to the horn. And since the horn works with the car off, both of those terminals have 12 volts (one is the constant feed at the common terminal and the other is the positive relay coil terminal).

C appears to be ground constant. B is the only terminal that appears to be neither. My guess is B is the wire going to the switch inside the steering wheel. See if you have continuity between B and that wire. Or, see if you get 12V+ or ground at C when you press the horn switch. It could be 12V+ or ground, depending on what the horn needs to complete the circuit.

But on a standard 4pin relay is as follows; one is 12V+ constant, one is ground, one is input (i.e. wire coming from switch, either 12V+ or neg), and the other is the output to the device, the horn in this case, which activates the horn.

Since we have 2 sources of 12V constant, I am confused and cannot help. Maybe someone else can chime in here.
Scott

To simplify how a relay works: There is a common terminal. It receives either a 12 volt or ground source (12 for this horn). There is a Normally Open terminal (N.O., it is the output of the relay to the device. It will be the same as the common terminal as far as being 12 volts or ground). Then there are the two low current coil terminals. Though it doesnt matter for many relays, out of convention, terminal 85 is ground and 86 is 12 volts. Either can be the switched element. All that matters is that one is positive and one negative (when both elements are present, the coil closes the NO and common terminals).

As I recall from testing my horn way back when, the horn button sends a ground pulse to the horn relay.

I had hoped I conveyed a lot of this info in earlier posts but I guess it doesnt appear so.

 

[jonv]

Hissin,

Don't want you to be discouraged on your methods of explaining...I'm just not very car savvy. So sometimes things just don't make sense to me. I want to thank you for your help, and everyone else who has given input about my problem.

I will try and figure out what is wrong, if I get it working I'll come back and post what was the problem.

Again, thanks for all of your help and information.

 

[jstang94gt]

jonv: I still haven't figured mine out, posted on multiple forums as well, and got nothing as good as this. I'll have time to work on it tomorrow I think, so I'll let ya know if anything solves it.

 

[jonv]

Well, I'm assuming that my problem lies within the wiring inside the steering wheel itself. I tore it apart after class today, but couldn't spend too much time because I needed to get back to work. When I get home tonight I'm going to try and tear it apart even more. If I come up with something I'll let you know.