I'm befuddled by what just happened to me today. For a little background, I have an '88 notch in which I just installed a flex-a-lite automatic fan controller and a Grant steering wheel. After the fan controller install, I took the car for a drive and everything was fine. However, after gettting done installing the new Grant wheel today, I went for a short drive to enjoy my new addition, and everything went to hell...
About 3 minutes into my cruise, I noticed my Autometer tach was suddenly about 1,000 rpm off from my factory tach - When I came to a stoplight waiting to go left, I noticed the Autometer tach's needle was dropping slightly with every click of my turn signal. Like the draw of the turn signal was affecting the tach's reading. My initial thought was that I must have screwed something up when wiring up the fan controller and that I'd check on it when I got home. Then about 5 minutes and 2 miles later, I'm sitting at a stop light and notice that the engine was running pretty rough, the blinker was now not functioning at all, and my factory tach's reading was now also off - So, I tapped the throttle to see how the tach would respond and it hardly budged, while the Autometer jumped to about 3k, and the engine was maybe revved to 1,500 rpm. At this point, I started to get worried and just wanted to get the car home. The light turned green, I let the clutch out, and the car sputtered and didn't want to move...
I then tried revving the engine up a bit and had another try at it with the same result when I tried to put any load on the engine. So, I decided to limp the car off to the side of the road because I knew I wasn't going to make it home. I then got out to check under the hood and see if anything was loose, or if something got disconnected, or... I honestly didn't know what. The car continued to run really rough for a couple of minutes, then just died. I tried to restart it, but just got the fast clicking sound of the ignition and nothing from the starter. So, the battery was obviously at least part of the issue. Got home, checked the battery's voltage with my multimeter and it was only reading about 9.2V.
Now, if it weren't for all of the electrical gremlins that came on out of nowhere before my car fell on it's face, I would assume it was either my battery or my alternator. However, it seems to me that something else must be going on, but I don't know what.
I know it has nothing to do with the steering wheel... So that's out of the question. When I wired up the fan controller, I ran the constant power to a distribution block from which the fan was previously controlled via a console mounted switch, and the switched power to the power wire for my wiper motor. Now, the main power cable from the battery is also run directly to this distribution block (battery is mounted in trunk) - Could this new controller be causing some sort of excessive draw?
Another couple of items to note are that the car has an MSD ignition and coil.
I'm honestly lost and not good when it comes to diagnosing electrical bugs, so, if anyone can lend some insight as to what they think may be causing this, it would be greatly appreciated.
About 3 minutes into my cruise, I noticed my Autometer tach was suddenly about 1,000 rpm off from my factory tach - When I came to a stoplight waiting to go left, I noticed the Autometer tach's needle was dropping slightly with every click of my turn signal. Like the draw of the turn signal was affecting the tach's reading. My initial thought was that I must have screwed something up when wiring up the fan controller and that I'd check on it when I got home. Then about 5 minutes and 2 miles later, I'm sitting at a stop light and notice that the engine was running pretty rough, the blinker was now not functioning at all, and my factory tach's reading was now also off - So, I tapped the throttle to see how the tach would respond and it hardly budged, while the Autometer jumped to about 3k, and the engine was maybe revved to 1,500 rpm. At this point, I started to get worried and just wanted to get the car home. The light turned green, I let the clutch out, and the car sputtered and didn't want to move...
I then tried revving the engine up a bit and had another try at it with the same result when I tried to put any load on the engine. So, I decided to limp the car off to the side of the road because I knew I wasn't going to make it home. I then got out to check under the hood and see if anything was loose, or if something got disconnected, or... I honestly didn't know what. The car continued to run really rough for a couple of minutes, then just died. I tried to restart it, but just got the fast clicking sound of the ignition and nothing from the starter. So, the battery was obviously at least part of the issue. Got home, checked the battery's voltage with my multimeter and it was only reading about 9.2V.
Now, if it weren't for all of the electrical gremlins that came on out of nowhere before my car fell on it's face, I would assume it was either my battery or my alternator. However, it seems to me that something else must be going on, but I don't know what.
I know it has nothing to do with the steering wheel... So that's out of the question. When I wired up the fan controller, I ran the constant power to a distribution block from which the fan was previously controlled via a console mounted switch, and the switched power to the power wire for my wiper motor. Now, the main power cable from the battery is also run directly to this distribution block (battery is mounted in trunk) - Could this new controller be causing some sort of excessive draw?
Another couple of items to note are that the car has an MSD ignition and coil.
I'm honestly lost and not good when it comes to diagnosing electrical bugs, so, if anyone can lend some insight as to what they think may be causing this, it would be greatly appreciated.
Hahaha
