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Electrical leaks.

Recently I noticed that the left side of the instrument panel was very dim at night. (87 Towncar) I thought that bulbs needed replacing, but I was wrong.

While replacing the electric window motor on drivers rear door I had motor and cigarette lighter disconnected. Suddenly the dim dash lights were very bright again. I left the cigarette lighter disconnected and dash lights are fine now. I suspect there was a small short or something draining power.

I replaced both batter cables. The negative black cable touches metal on several places so i put one of those plastic flex tubes over it. After doing so the drivers door electric window now moves much faster as if it has more power. Could it be that the new battery cable could of been leaking power on the places it touched metal?

How do I find other small shorts or places where current is being leaked?

Reply to
J J
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This isn't all that unusual for people who smoke and get various gunk inside the lighter socket. Usually pulling the lighter socket out and cleaning it will fix all that.

No. The black cable is connected to the chassis anyway. The reason your door works so much better probably has more to do with disconnecting the cigarette lighter so that short is gone away. It might have a little to do with the new and less-corroded cables.

Pull the battery terminal and put an ammeter on it. Then poke around and see where the current is going. If the car is pulling 2 amps when everything is shut off, that's bad and there's something that isn't really shut off. If it's pulling 20 mA, that's fine.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

If the cables were shorting through the insulation you would have had smoke, not low voltage. The connections on the cables were probably corroded causing the low voltage. Reseat plugs and clean all ground connections. Make sure they are clean metal to metal contacts...

Reply to
Woody

Over the summer my '89 Ford 5.0L also had dim dash lights and the battery would occasionally go dead over night. The problem would disappear for a couple of weeks and then reappear. I hunted high and low for something draining the battery. The problem turned out to be the alternator. I always thought of alternators either working or failing completely, but this one failed intermittently. It was both occasionally not charging and draining the battery. If the dash lights go dim again, run and put a volt meter on the battery. If the voltage is not around 13 volts then you could have a failing alternator too.

Reply to
tom

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