OK, where to start on this poor thing.

A) Car was brought into the shop in the fall for a paint job.
B) Painted the car, another shop picked it up to do some tuning, then customer got it back.
C) Cust. returns car, strange electrical issue.

What happens, is if you're sitting in the car with the key off nad press the brakes, the dash lights come on. Also, some of his defi gauges would light up.

As well, if the door's open when you press the brakes, the dinger goes off (presumably it thinks I've left the lights on because there's power on the dash light circuit?)

What I've done:

Checked wiring on defi's. Found alot of problems, namely someone had tapped into the brake circuit for +12V constant, and had it on wrong side of the switch. That fixed that.

I checked over anything I removed on the car, tail lights, door sills for pinched wiring etc. I found one dual filament bulb in the tail lamps had one burnt out filament that was hanging down and touching the other inside!! BAM, thats it right!!??! No. Tried another bulb and no dice - still does it.

Any ideas on what to check on this car? I'm at my wits end!

I should mention this car has had *alot* of wiring done by various plaecs over time. I saw somethings in this FD that made myu butt pucker such as the + battery relocation wire ran through the firewall in a quickly drilled, roughed edged bare metal hole with no grommet or bulk head!! But for now, I'd like to omit the possibility of previous work causing this issue as my main focus is on what happened to it between my possesion and when the cust. got it back (which is when this started) although I do realize and have told the cust. that it's likely entirely unrelated to me - I just want it fixed because hate being beat by little issues!

HELP

 

well if the car was working fine after it left your shop, and another shop worked on it and then it started going nuts, then while are you taking responsibility?

edit: just got to the last sentence

 

Thanks for the help!

The thing is I'm not really sure whether it started doing it AT my shop, after or whatever. We've got the battery disconnected and push the car's around after we start on them. When we're done the only driving I did with the car was moving it to wash it, then park it. Can't recall if it was happening because it was daylight outside.

But thats all here nor there because the cust. says it wasn't like that before so I have to do everything I can to satisfy him.

Any ideas on what to check, or where the brake light circuit wires run together with running light wires? Any chance that the little CPU in the kick panel has somethign burnt out from the one bulb having crossed filament?

 

Check your brake bulbs (dual filament), maybe you have one that is wrong (single filament) or have a parking light filament that is shorted to the brake filament. That short will power your parking/gauge lights whener the brake pedal is applied and your brake lights comes on.

 

ok, I've missed the fact that you've already check the bulb. Did you try unscrewing the bulb out one at a time and testing the brakes to see if it lights up your dash. You could have a bad socket too.

 

Hmm, haven't checked the sockets that way, just a visual on all of them.

I'll give it a try!

 

!!Well, problem solved!!

I checked the rear light sockets, no dice again.

Went back over everything under the dash, and found another wire tapped into the brake lamp circuit which was seperate from the one I'd already removed, just further up the wire. Followed it along found spots that had been cut and re-joined, but they had joined it to a wire that must've been tied to the parklamp circuit, because cutting them apart fixed the issue I really have no idea where the other piece of wire goes to, it wasn't factory, but somewhere on its journey it ties into the park lamp circuit Nightmare I tells ya

Moral of the story: Keep you wiring neat fellas.

 

I bet you the customer is claiming he has nothing to do with it and knows nothing about that mysterious wire(s) you've found tapped into the brake circuits. You have to love the "ever since" stories people come up with when you are in the service industry. Anyway, great find, hope this guy don't come back and say something silly like ever since you've fixed my brake lights my stereo that I've put in don't come on anymore or something. When I was young, I've worked in a repair shop and we had a used car dealer that would bring in everything and everything he picks either at an auction or as a trade that had an aftermarket alarm system and one of the first thing he wants was to have everything removed and returned to original or as much as possible. I used to have tons and tons of working alarm systems, some with remotes and some without, and I never could understand why this guy would want a perfectly working system out, the ones with remotes, I could understand why he would want a system with lost remotes out. The way he sees it, he doesn't want any of his crappy cars come back for something silly.........now if only people knew what some of the mechanical stuff these slimey used car dealers wants.