Wiring fender relay, what goes where?

Mike8675309

Registered User
O.k.. I knew it would happen if I pulled the stuff off the fender relay, and it did. I thought I knew where it all went, but I ran into an issue as I'm rewiring some things. Both the negative and positive lines are acting as though the are common ground to the chassis. (this is on my 93)

What I found was causing it was one of the wires I connected to the fender relay. Now I thought that goes there, but now I'm not so sure. So in the attached pictures I'm asking for identification of two of the wires. Now the small one I know where it goes as it only fits in one place. The other one has me concerned. It is currently common to ground, and when it was on the left stud of the fender relay it was causing the whole positive circuit to be at ground potential.

So the question. What are those two unidentified wires for and where does the one go? That'll help me track down if there is an issue.

Thanks
 

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The small red right angle connector goes to a post on the relay....

It is connected to the ignition switch and energizes the relay to provide power to the starter motor....

Looking straight down from the edge of the fender of my 92, the left post only has one leg of the "U" shaped connector....

I can't see whats on the right post unless I take some wires off.....
 
Here is an old pic from my 90

I only show one wire on the negative side.

Loaded a new pic I just shot - a better angle.


Later
dbd
 

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That sounds like what I figured. Then the question becomes what the heck is the wire on the left in the picture below for? Right now it's showing common with ground/the chassis, which makes no sense to me. It's showing about 4.6 ohm of resistance as well, so it's not a solid ground. So I need to know what that wire is for so I can figure out what is messed up.

Thanks.

Just had a thought. I may have nicked a wire that runs in inside the floor of the car. I've been running some stuff under the car and that might be the problem. Tomorrow I'll crawl under the car and back out each screw and see if that allows me to pinpoint the problem. would still love to know what that wire is for.
 

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So, 4 hours later and I'm slightly farther forward, and backward. I'm pretty sure that the bottom left connector in the image above is for battery power to the fuse box under the dash.

I have a DVM that will give a tone when the leads are common (otherwise known as a short). So I hooked it to ground and that connector and got the tone. (I shouldn't). I then went and removed every screw that I had placed in under the car. The tone never went away. I pulled all the fuses from the Power distribution block. Still a short. So I pulled my drivers seat out, and the carpet under there, and the shields over the wire harness, and confirmed that none of the wires were close to the screws.

the only possible issue is a couple of screws that went up behind the wheel well. Pulling the carpet and the sound deadening material under the pedals is challenging, and the plastic shield along the dead pedal. But it appears the harness goes up before that angle, and then through the dash to the firewall.

Once I figured out the wire is for the fuse box, I then started pulling fuses from the fuse box in the car. I had all but 4 out and the tone stopped. I started putting fuses back in, one by one. I identified that there are two circuits causing the issue. The circuits for the HEGO and the Turn Signals are shorted to ground.

I checked the O2 sensors and both are connected and not touching anything. I checked the turn signal wires and they all seem good. So it must be something in the harness.

Next step is to track down the wire colors I should be looking for and seeing if I can trace them back. I may need to pull the center console so I can get the carpet away from the drivers foot well.

I think I'll tackle that tomorrow.:(
 
Answering my own questions is fun. Of course, as typical, something always ends up broken. Who knew that 3 of the fuses in the power distribution block were bolted in, even though they look the same as the ones that are plug in. Some broken plastic and a need for a new fuse has me solving my issue.

It is a non issue. I found that I had the ignition switched on. That was causing a 230ohm load across ground. I verified this by disconnecting the battery on my 90 and testing.

The challenge here is that connector that I highlighted has two 10 gauge wires connected to it. Each of those goes into the harness of the PDB about 10 inches, where one is joined with 3 more yellow wires which head into the PDB and the other is joined with two Pink/black wires also heading back into the PDB. These wires then are fused with various fuses, my culprit being the 80amp fuse for the ignition switch/blower fan. So i go into the car and yep, ignition switch is on. With no battery in it for a while, it must have gotten knocked on when pushing the car into the garage, and I never took the key out.

So now I can put the harness back together. I'll run some wires from the dash to the trunk for a switch for my coolant pump, then button the interior back up.

Oh well, wasted days and wasted nights. Typical when working on any car, let alone an SC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qu8RPvhP-U
 
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