electrical gremlin

Short Bus · Aug 29, 2014

I have been battling dead battery situation in my 99 for quite awhile now. It used to be that if it set for more than 4-5 days the batteries would be nearly dead, now its down to over night. I unhooked the positive battery cables and tried to see what the total system current draw was. As soon as i did that it smoked the fuse in my meter. Put a clamp meter on it and it was up 70-80 amps.... glow plugs were kicking in with no key in the ignition, dash lights were on and the engine tried to crank over. anyone had something like this happen before? Once i unhooked the starter relay and the glow plug relay, the system draw then went down to an amp or 2 due to the dash being lit up and the interior lights being on. The batteries did test good also. What would cause the pcm to wig out and turn things on like this?

Arisley · Aug 29, 2014

Check the wiring at your starter.

JLDickmon · Aug 29, 2014

check the S-wire on the starter.. see if it's shorted to voltage

Short Bus · Aug 29, 2014

I will check it but out of curiosity how would that cause the PCM to act like the key was on?

lincolnlocker · Aug 30, 2014

that mutha ***a is haunted. id burn it to the ground!

live life full throttle

Pstrke96 · Aug 30, 2014

Don't burn it!!!! Sell it to me cheap

Fantom · Aug 30, 2014

Bad GEM module?

Short Bus · Sep 2, 2014

starter looked ok.... will try to swap another gem in, i happen to have a brand new one from ford sitting here for another project.

lincolnlocker · Sep 2, 2014

ignition shorting out and actually trying to start the truck or act like starting the truck?

live life full throttle

Short Bus · Sep 3, 2014

It just cranks intermittently/ randomly when the voltage is low enough. Glow plugs cycle, dash warning lights come on etc.... I swapped my gem out and took a voltage reading so I will see how it looks in the morning.

lincolnlocker · Sep 3, 2014

holy crap

live life full throttle

Short Bus · Sep 3, 2014

Lost .2 volts over a 12.5 hr period. I was messing around with it today and split the wires off the starter solenoid on the pass fender. One pair of wires would snap when you touched it to the pos cable. I put an amp meter across it and at first it was right around 100ma draw then went to 5a and on up to 7-8a and all of a sudden the marker lights started flashing, gp relay kicking in, etc... I ***in hate this thing, really don't have the desire to mess with it