Hey guys, I recently bought a 1998 TA. When bought, everything was disassembled and I bought it with no motor or transmission. Now I have the car all together and I am having an electrical problem.

The problem is, when you hook the battery up everything has power as if the ignition key were on, but it is not. If you start the car up, you cannot turn it off unless you pull the PCM BAT fuse. Everything is hooked up correctly and I cannot find any missing grounds. I even pulled the steering column to look around in there, and with the steering column physically not even in the car everything still has power when I hook up the battery. I do not know how these curcuits work so I need a little help here on what could be causing my issue. I am not new to f bodies at all, but I have never had a problem like this before.

All the wiring is stock, and has not been tampered with.

 

well i would first try to simplify the problem. first all power starts at the battery. then it gets split and divided to constant power circuits and IGN circuits and such. i would try to find exactly which circuits are on that aren't supposed to be. is it all of them or only some of them. see where i'm going? if its all of them then its something in the first part of the circuits where they are still together and haven't branched off yet. if it is only certain circuits then you can see whats controls them or where they branch or whats similiar about them to try and trace the problem that way.

 

When I hook the battery up

-Fuel pump primes
-Parking lamps/daytime running lights come on
-Instrument cluster comes on
-Power windows become operational


This is all with the key off. It even does it with the steering column out of the car. I have no idea where to go with this. It's just like as if you turned the key to the KOEO position

 

well then the problem lies before the ignition switch. there are heavy gauge wires under the dash, hot, ign, acc etc. maybe the hot got pinched/melted to the ign wire. just a thought. probe with a multi-meter and confirm which wires have hot power that arent supposed to. do a search for wire colors and then use that as a cross reference. you need to confirm exactly what wires are affected or you are gonna chasing dead ends blindly.

 

Do you have any pinouts of those connectors or know specifically where I can find them? I hit all the wires with a test light so I know which ones have power, but I don't know what they are for or where to trace them to. The wires with power are pink and red. I am guessing the red ones have power full time but pink is not supposed to?

 

Wire/Function Colour Location/Description Polarity
PASSIVE ANTI-THEFT YES PASSKEY / V.A.T.S. SEE NOTES
12 VOLTS Red Ignition harness +
IGNITION Pink Ignition harness +
ACCESSORY Orange Ignition harness +
STARTER Yellow Ignition harness +
KEY SENSE Lt.green Ignition harness -
TACH SIGNAL SEE NOTES
WHITE at the Ignition module on the top of the engine for the 3.8L. The 5.7L engine has a coil per cylinder. The WHITE tach wire can be found at the PCM behind the right strut tower at pin-35 of the 80 pin connector.

LOCK Red/black Driver's kick panel -
The BCM which control the doorlocks goes into a sleep mode when the vehicle is left sitting for a few minutes and the doorlocks no longer operate. The module must be 'woken up' before the doorlocks can be operated again. See the ALARM diagram for details. PLEASE NOTE: On models equipped with no factory security, the doorlocks can be wired as a reverse polarity doorlock system.

UNLOCK Orange/black Driver's kick panel -
The BCM which control the doorlocks goes into a sleep mode when the vehicle is left sitting for a few minutes and the doorlocks no longer operate. The module must be 'woken up' before the doorlocks can be operated again. See the ALARM diagram for details. PLEASE NOTE: On models equipped with no factory security, the doorlocks can be wired as a reverse polarity doorlock system.

DOORPIN Gray/black & Black/white At BCM above pass. Kick -
Both wires should be isolated with 1N4001 diodes to prevent any feedback. You can also find your hatch trigger and doorlock wires here as well as the hatch release wire.

TRUNK PIN Orange/black In driver's kickpanel -
TRUNK RELEASE Black/white In driver's kickpanel -
DRIVER DOOR LATCH Gray/black Same as doorpin -
FACTORY DISARM See notes
BRAKESWITCH White or Lt.blue At switch above brake pedal +
PARKLIGHTS Brown In driver's kickpanel +
HAND BRAKE Tan/white At steering column harness -
HORN Black At steering column harness -
CLUTCH SWITCH Dk.green At switch on top of clutch pedal TYPE 1
DRIVER WINDOW UP Dk.blue At switch in driver's door REV POL
DRIVER WINDOW DOWN Brown At switch in driver's door REV POL
PASSENGER WINDOW UP Blue or Blue/white At switch in driver's door REV POL
PASSENGER WINDOW DOWN Tan At switch in driver's door REV POL
HEADLIGHTS Yellow At light switch harness +
REVERSE LIGHTS Lt.green or Gray In driver's kickpanel +
DIMMER Gray At dimmer switch harness
VSS WIRE Dk.green/white Behind radio or at PCM 4000ppm
This wire can be found on the connector to the rear of the vehicle's radio or at the PCM behind the right strut tower pin-55 of the 80-pin connector.

DATABUS INTERFACE Pin-2(top row from left) Diagnostic plug below dash DATA
V.A.T.S. White In orange tube at steering column DATA

 

thats correct pink isn't supposed to have power.

 

Looks like I've got some wire tracing to do. I am going out of town tomorrow, will be back Thursday, but then leaving for NC on Friday or Saturday. So it may be a week or two till I get a chance to do it

Thanks for your help. I will post up when I get back to it.

 

Did you ever find out if something got fried/melted together when we were messing with getting the windows up? There was a significant amount of smoke in the cabin as I'm sure you remember...

 

I think something did short out, but I haven't found it yet. I haven't had much time to work on the car in the past 2 weeks. I'll update this post when I figure it out. I probably won't work on the car for another week.

 

OK just yesterday I was about to get back on the car. I did find that if I unplug the ABS block that the problem goes away COMPLETELY. Weird!!! Now what I need to figure out is if it is the ABS block itself causing the problem, or if I do in fact have a wiring problem. Does anyone know where I can find a pinout of the ABS block connector? Thanks again for your help!

 

Anyone?

 

dont know that one

 

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