96 Ranger, Multiple Electrical Problems... HELP!

[Calvin Mooburger]

Hey guys, I'm at my wit's end on this thing. Thanks for having this forum!!

Here's what I've got:

1996 Ranger, 4.0, 2wd SuperCab XLT, manual 5 speed. About 250K miles, all mine, I've had the truck since new.

Driving down the road one day, set the cruise control (ON-SET), then took my foot off of the go pedal. The cruise didn't engage, and the speedo was dropping from about 60mph down to zero, even though I had by now got my foot back on the accelerator and was holding speed. Now I'm starting to smell something buring, electrical. No fire, but VERY strong smell of magic smoke escaping from something.

Turned around and went back home, and found these things that no longer worked:

• Cruise control Inop.
• Speedometer/Odometer Inop.
• Windshield Wipers Inop.
• Automatic "Down" on Drivers side electric window Inop.
• Fuse #25 blown, and immediately blows when replaced. Hard short somewhere on this circuit, obviously.
• Dome Light Inop.

All of these things happened when I set the cruise that last time... everything was working up to that point.

Any Ideas?

I'm all ears... Please help! I don't want to drop a lot of money in this truck, but it's been a good machine, this is the first real problem I've had with it since it was new.

I can live without most of this stuff, but I really need to get the WS Wipers going again... it does rain every once in a while.


Thanks!!


Calvin

 

[Calvin Mooburger]

I did a little more research here on explorerforum.com (you guys have an awesome site, btw!!) and narrowed it down to either the instrument cluster, or the GEM module. So, I tore into the panel, removed the cluster, and then checked the ohms from the load side of Fuse 25 to ground... the ohms dropped from 5.3 to about 4.6... so that made a difference. But I couldn't smell any smoke or see any hot spots on the instrument cluster. So, I decided to try another 7.5 amp fuse in #25, and again it immediately blew, along with the clicking sounds I read about on here, PLUS... SMOKE! So I just followed my nose right to the GEM. Thar' she blows!!

Do you guys know of anything else to look out for that may have caused the GEM to go bad? Or is it always just an internal fault inside the GEM module (which smells nice and electrically toasted inside...)?

I just don't want to get a new GEM and fry it first thing. I can't find any signs of anything else wrong inside the instrument panel, everything looks clean and orderly.