electrical gremlin

[1990LTD]

ok, on the way home today i noticed faint blue light down at my left side, the driver door courtesy was shining dim but they were off..anyway, i pulled the bulb and figured that was the culprit because no other lights were funky like that, at least at the time...a plain jane 194 that I took out of my pile of 194s that came on the car, and it's still flickering. Tonight I notice all of my courtesy lights are getting a small amount of power intermittently...I didn't THINK they were doing it earlier but I could be wrong. They're all flicking on and off...so I pulled fuse #8 not expecting to find anything since nothing else on that fuse is acting strangely (clock..glove box light..etc) and the fuse looks okay, but I replaced it anyway. Lights are still flickering dimly.


If I would open the door the courtesies would come on full like normal, and slamming the door would shut the lights off for a second but they'd start flickering again. Something amiss with one of the door sensor thingers perhaps? I don't know what the fuck it's actually called, but messing with it didn't do anything to improve the situation...and nothing else on that fuse seemed to be doing anything.


Anyway, I pulled the fuse so my battery isn't dead in the morning. I can live without courtesy lights and a clock until I figure out where my gremlin lives. Again, not everything on that fuse was doing it...but the dome and courtesies were.

oh yeah, I got rid of the battery light flickering problem, I do not know if it could be related at all but the problem was in the connection I had made previously when I crimped the warning lamp wire to the alt when I did the 3g swap. It must have been, because the light hasn't flickered yet since I re-did the crimp with a better butt splice. The battery light would flicker at idle and when I'd use the brakes etc...but that's not what the thread is about

[gadget73]

the door switch is probably failing. Replace it or pull the fuse until you can get a new one before you have a fire. Another thought, its possible the switch has been pushed too far into the door pillar and isn't opening all the way. If you can get your hand inside the A pillar to shove the switch out a little bit, do that and gently close the door. That should re-orient the switch to the proper position. If that doesn't fix the light problem, the switch is shot. Keep in mind there are 4 of them, so theres no guarantee its the one at the driver's door. Check them all.

[91grandmarquis]

My airbag light comes one and flashes if i put the car in gear before it goes out, dont know if thats normal. Your problem does sound like its a door sensor though. I would say pull the fuse either way because nobody wants a car fire. From being on the FD I know that they are almost always surround and drown because they get cooking hot and fast.

[1990LTD]

My airbag light comes one and flashes if i put the car in gear before it goes out, dont know if thats normal. Your problem does sound like its a door sensor though. I would say pull the fuse either way because nobody wants a car fire. From being on the FD I know that they are almost always surround and drown because they get cooking hot and fast.

Airbag light blinking is telling you what the problem is..it blinks x number of times for y problem. I do believe it was gadget that posted a list of codes in a thread about airbag light blinking a little while back


I'm leaning toward it being the one in the drivers door, because it's the only one where slamming the door would do anything. Thanks guys....are they just called door sensors? I'll try getting my hand inside there to push the button back out. The one on my door has been sticking closed sometimes in the very very cold weather.

[1990LTD]

just found em on rockauto...door jamb switch. only like 20 bucks for a new one.

[91grandmarquis]

Sometimes some wd40 will clean em up if their dirty, spray em down and then push em in and out, however thats pretty cheap for a new one so id just get it.

[GM_Guy]

Does the flickering stop if you push the plunger in with your finder? Check each door one by one. If the flickering stops by fingering it pull the barrel housing out a couple clicks and gently close the door (which will push the switch housing in to set its depth).

Alex.

[1990LTD]

Nope. Screwing with the plunger/switch assy. does make it flicker differently*, etc. Prettymuch have it slam the door to get it to do anything. I have a new set of switches ordered so I'm gonna replace the two fronts and just yank out the two in the back and crimp off the ends just so I can eliminate them as future problems**. Nobody really gets in and out of the back seat of my car anyway...I just realized yesterday while cleaning it that the new floor mats I got for Xmas are completely untouched in the back


* - "Normal" operation for the funky switch is that it just makes the courtesy lights flicker at random.


** - I'm assuming that's how the switch functions, at least. When it opens, it's completing the circuit and allowing the power to flow to the lights, right? So I should just be able to pull the switches out, snip them/crimp them, and put the switch back in so as not to have a hole in my door?

[gadget73]

just unplug the ones in the back if you're concerned about it. Don't cut any wires. I would leave them in place if they work though. Money is on the driver's side one being the problem, simply because that one by far gets the most wear.

[1990LTD]

Got the switches in the post today, didn't have time to put them on before I went to work. How do you pull the old switches out anyway?

[87gtVIC]

how do the new ones look? That may give a hint as to how they are installed.

[gadget73]

they just push into place. shove the old one into the car with a screwdriver handle, install the new one the opposite way.

[1990LTD]

Is the rear of it hard to get to? Removing interior trim etc

[gadget73]

not really. the kickpanel piece comes out with i think 2 screws and a plastic tree thing. the A pillar is hard to get your hands inside because of all the wires running through there, but not much to be done for that.

[1990LTD]

Curse my giant muscular musicians hands! I managed to push the old one out, hook the new one up (it works, problem solved), but I can't push the new one in. There's physically no room whatsoever to get any kind of leverage to push the switch in the door jamb from behind/under/through all of the wiring... I had to move some shit out of the way like my hood release and the ground cable for the courtesies and whatnot, but it's just barely large enough in there for me to fit my hand, let alone move it around.