Intermittant Electrical Problems

[AlaskanShade]

I just traded my 99 Explorer for an 02 Mountaineer and it has a variety of electrical oddities. Electrical components on the drivers door will sometimes not operate when the car is off. This includes the keypad, the door lock switch and the door latch sensor. The door switch is the one I worry about the most since it will leave the dome light on until the battery dies (did that once). To make things even more interesting, if I turn the dome light off at the dimmer switch, the radio will always turn off when I open the door. This tells me that the switch is working. I have replaced the security module as I could not get the door code to work at any time, now it works intermittantly. Does anyone have any ideas as to what might cause these problems?

 

[rrgone]

Welcome in here. Is it summer yet up there?

I'm curious about the new Security Module install. Did you have it done at a dealership or put in yourself? The dealerships claim it needs programming after install, but they claim that for the 4X4 module too and that's not true. Did everything work ok for a while after the new one was installed or did it go from nonworking to intermittant? The stuff you're having problems with all interfaces with the SM as I'm sure you know. Did you check for a broken wire in the drivers door and especially in the flex conduit between the door and door jam? If the ground in there is damaged and making intermittant contact it will drive the module crazy. Sounds like a possibility. Good luck.

 

[AlaskanShade]

It hasn't really become summer yet in most of Alaska. I happen to be travelling in Colorado at the moment, but we had some tranny problems to address. I picked up a security module from a salvage yard just to give it a try and after I put it in, the door code worked and everything else seemed to work. After a while it went back to being intermittant. I tried swapping between the old and new modules, but the problems are still intermittant and the old module will not recognize the code so I left the new one in.

During a period that it was not working, I wiggled every wire in the door and the flex conduit to the body while testing the door lock switch. I was not able to make a difference and I have not been able to determine where the drivers door is grounded, but I suspect it may be somewhere near the fusebox. I tested four feeds to the security module for voltage and all seemed to be fine. I always come back to thinking it must be a ground problem because those always seem to cause bizarre issues. I have a factory wiring manual on order since the Chilton didn't have all of the detail that I wanted.

 

[rrgone]

Yeah, sounds like a grounding problem for sure. You could try opening up the door and splice in some temp ground wires to find out. One guy in here just grounded the black wires to a bolt he found inside the door and was good after that. Probably not a great idea for long term fix though. Let us know what you find out.