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Electrical - Backwards Battery

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Old 07-11-09, 07:50 PM
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Electrical - Backwards Battery

Well, I managed to put my battery in backwards... I was rushing, and forget to double check which way it was
The car is a GSL-SE, stock, about 80k miles... All the fuses and links are good...
My interior lights (dome and map), all warning buzzers (except redline), speakers, and clock don't work anymore.
The odd parts are that the clock works fine if the running lights or headlights are on... And the radio still powers up and the antenna goes up, just no sounds what so ever.
Any knowledge or assistance here would be very helpful, let me know if you need any more info, or if I should check something else...
I have a parts car I can pull parts off of, and I can get a hold of most diagnostic tools I don't have on hand...
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Old 07-12-09, 12:34 AM
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(ouch)
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Old 07-12-09, 12:36 AM
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An odd update, the clock shuts off if the door is open... The backlight stays on, but the numbers go away.
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Old 07-12-09, 06:31 AM
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Check all the fuses again

My bro did it to his SA and mostly fuses died, the fuel pumps appears to be directly wired on the 79 or im missing a fuse (I moved them around what matched n such and found a few spares) but still nothing rly worked but cranking till we got them all fixed.

All the fuseable links were fine, your cpu is prolly toast tho
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Old 07-12-09, 01:51 PM
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If the ECU was gone, wouldn't the car not run? (car still runs great) I pulled and checked every fuse in the block, and checked all the fuseable links for continuity, unless there are some extra fuses or links hidden somewhere (under dash, drivers side, and drivers side strut tower), I checked them all.
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Old 07-13-09, 03:24 AM
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ohh you didnt say it still ran?

no idea check the wiring diagrams for the circuits and trace
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Old 07-13-09, 09:27 AM
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Originally Posted by Vantss
An odd update, the clock shuts off if the door is open... The backlight stays on, but the numbers go away.
Odds are you've got an open or high-resistance wire (or fuse) somewhere, and you're powering some items "sideways" from power that feeds thru other components until they are activated. Also known as a "floating circuit" in electrical terminology.

Example: the lead that powers the interior lights... when the door is closed, 12V will still show on the 'cold' side of the lamp because the door switch works by interrupting the ground side wiring when the door is closed. When the door is open, the 'cold' side goes to ground, all the voltage develops only on the 'hot' side of the bulb.

"Isolate and half-split" is likely the only way you're gonna find this type of problem, unless you get lucky and it's a fuse that "half blew," raising it's resistance but still showing closed circuit.
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Old 05-03-16, 02:53 PM
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I feel like a goon for raising a thread from the grave, but I feel bad I never finished my own thread too. It turned out to be a fuse, only one. Took a while to find. Not 7 years long, but a car with no problems kept me away from the forum, haha. Thanks for the tips.
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