Short to ground-'87

[jeffcoslacker]

Thanx Carl, I'll take a look.

[AccordCodger]

I understand what he was saying about the ground. Have seen high amperage items try to gain a ground path through other sytems they are in conjunction with if the ground path was not good enough, causing unwanted operation of another circuit.

That's true, but the current consuption would then be LOWER than normal, not higher (think 2 bulbs wired in series). So it wouldn't fit your symptoms.

[jeffcoslacker]

Maybe ther is grounds coming off the main fusebox under the hood? I don't see how. I've gotta get a wiring diagram for this one. It's an '88, BTW. He told me '87. PGMFI. Wires showing ground at the connectors to the main box are black, and green with black tracer, and white. Anybody?

[mpumas]

Green/blk from the under the hood relay/fuse box goes to the rr power window motor. There is a white wire from the under the hood relay/fuse box that goes to the radiator fan relay.

[jeffcoslacker]

Well, a small update, even though no real progress, this problem continues to confound me and do things that shouldn't really be possible. While probing for grounds with a test light, one of the terminals in the connector I unplugged from the bottom of the underhood power center caused a slight ticking noise to occur from the area of the left headlight retractor. The strange thing is, there is no current draw indicated by the light when it occurs. The probe is obviously completing a circuit to positive (test light connected to pos, probing for ground), but I've never seen this happen where there was no indication of a circuit current flow in the test lamp. Doesn't really seem possible. I'm gonna check it with a volt/ohm meter, just to satisfy my curiosity of this oddity.

Funny how people remember details that are crucial after you've spent hours chasing your tail. Since informing the owner of this discovery, he remembered that the left headlight started refusing to retract fully just before this nonsense with the fan and battery started.

So my working theory right now is that maybe the sticky retractor overheated some wiring and fused to wiring in the radiator fan circuit. It would be nice to know if those two systems shared any side-by-side wiring locations coming up to the power center, that would make me feel better about dissecting this spaghetti factory to find a short.