My electrical nightmare part deux

[ReaperBJJ]

I originally had this topic posted in the general 240 section, but I ment to put it here, and it became a cluster **** of random posts and pics, so I thought I'd clean it up, and put it in more of an appropriate place.

First, some basic background information on the car. It's an '89 hatch, still with KA-E and an auto transmission for now. Only aftermarket addition that I can think of that would seriously mess with the electrical system is a really cheap, crappy cd player, and the wiring behind there looks sort of shoddy and some spots seem to be masking taped together. I bought the car for cheap and don't know much about it's past history other than the fact that the previous owner was a damn retard and didn't know wtf he was doing on anything. For one he lost the only key so he broke the ignition tumbler off so he could start the car. I believe this is the source of a bunch of my problems, although I already put in a new tumbler and column.

Now to the point, right now I have a long list of little electrical gremlins.

1)Nothing works on my Accessory setting, only my headlights work at all times.

2)Nothing works right at start-up like it should, everything is the same as if the car was off, until I rev the car a few times and then the clock, heater fan, tails, brake lights, any other things I had turned on will click on.

3)Dashlights work fine after I rev the car like stated above, but I've noticed that the door chime will only work while the headlights are on.

4) horn and auto seatbelts don't work no matter what, not a big deal because they're stuck in the back position but still....

5) I believe theres a short somewhere in the gauge cluster, My speedo, tach, seatbelt light, e-brake light, etc. Worked for awhile but one time when I was reving the engine up a little bit all the things I just listed died. I checked the fuse box and noticed that the fuse marked "meter" was blown, so I replaced it with a new one, turned the motor back on, did the rev thing, the cluster stuff worked for a second and then the fuse blew again.

6) My idle is ****, it'll drop really low sometimes and then jump back up a bit.

7) There are 4 cut off and bare wires coming from the harness that runs to the wiper/light lever switches, and one plug with no mate coming directly out of the ignition tumbler

I have already tried putting in a brand new ACC relay and that did not work. My alternator is brand new, I just put it in this past weekend.

I think I covered all the info that I have at the moment. Could somebody give me some ideas or advice? I believe that it might be a grounding problem and that I might have a short in my cluster area, I'm going to take off the dash tomorrow night so I can see for sure.

Mods feel free to lock my other topic on this, I just got sick of having all those random posts with my info spread throughout the topic.
Modified by ReaperBJJ at 3:40 PM 4/9/2008

[ReaperBJJ]

Up, still haven't made any progress in finding the problem.

[ReaperBJJ]

Update, I got the gauge cluster out tonight, and didn't find too much that looked out of the ordinary except a jolly rancher that somehow made it's way behind the cluster....

Anyway, there's some pretty ugly hack and splice jobs that I can see right now around the steering column area. I also have a few questions about certain wires. First the 4 wires that are cut off and have no mate, that you can see in my picture, I finally got a better look at the colors. One is Yellow with a red stripe, another is red with white(which I found is one of the wires that is supposed to go to the random plug coming from the ignition tumbler), another is blue with red stripe, and the last I think is straight blue.

Also I found another sheered off wire underneath the steering column area, it is a thicker wire, maybe 10g and it is kind of an aqua, blue green color.

Lastly, I found what looks like a ground wire that was cut, it was bolted underneath the drivers side kick panel and used one of the bolts anchoring the TCU down.

Can ANYBODY give me some ideas, I have the FSM, but don't really know where or how to look for these wires.

[Vegascorbin]

Any chance of finding a simaller car in your area that you can take a look at? That might be the best thing.

Sorry I can't help any more than that.

[ReaperBJJ]

Not that I know of. A kid I talk to has an S14, but as far as I know I have the only S13 around here.