Big thanks to Kurt & Jacob for spending the weekend, and helping out with the rig issues. We tackled a couple of the 5.0L swap problems, and had luck with one of them. Kurt happens to be a certified mechanic and is a dealership tech, with many years experience under his belt. Was a God send to have him over, to have a look into this rig, and it's problems after it was returned to me.
The good:
The CAD axle wasn't working, and thus no 4wd.
We attacked this one first. Starting at the axle itself, we removed the CAD housing off the axle, and pulled out the shift fork. To make sure it wasn't broken, we applied vac pressure to it with the mighty vac. It worked just fine. Ok, next...
Moving on to the switch inside (A), we tested it for continuity to the relays (B). Tested fine, and we has all 3 wires check out from A to B.
From there, we removed the vac ball, and checked it for leaks. All good.
Now to the relays themselves. We discovered neither of them was getting any power. We jumped them to the battery, threw the switch, tested them both, and with the jumper wire, they worked. We hooked the shift fork housing back up to the relay vac lines, and watched the shift fork go from side to side with each relay being powered.
We found a good key on power source on the passenger side and Kurt did a real nice splice, and made a very nice new harness to the relays. Done deal, Working 4wd again.
The bad:
The Non responding Overdrive issue.
Removed the button harness, and checked for breaks, bends, stretching, etc... Looked fine. Doing a continuity test, it read alright, but it has a very high resistance on it. Jury is still out in this switch if good or bad right now.
Kurt dug deeper into the other side of the button harness, and traced it to the firewall at the bulk head connector. He went to remove the bulkhead cover, and I heard his disgust plain as day. He crawled out of the dash, and told me to have a look for myself.
So here it is..
Seems the engine swap shop, added some red 16 ga wire to 4 stock harness wires for some reason or another. All we can think of is they re-used the 95's dash harness, and just spliced into it for this & that. The wire that is burned had to be a flash burn, and got the wire element hot, and instantly burned off the jacket. I would have smelled that, if it happened here. I am 100% convinced, this was done, before it was shipped back to me.
After removing the bulk head cover, he was able to see more, and the wires connected to the new red wire. All Data says that this is the only wire of this color scheme, and is a C148, but does not offer the details, except that circuit goes to the cluster, and Gem. Same with the other 3 wires connected to the new red wire. So this would be where they spliced the 98 harness, into the Gem. Well, that's out best guess, as only they know what was done 100%. We used the meter on the burned wire, and checked every switch/control inside the rig, to see if anything was tied into it.
All we found was the front pass window, and both rear window door switches do not work. They do from the master door switch tho.
The other known electrical issues is the Overdrive not responding, of course, and the 3rd brake light does not have any power to it.
The one item that bugs the piss out of me, is they removed, and kept the hood light, and the anti theft hood switch off the fender. They could have left them, even if they didn't have the provisions for them, in the 98 harness. The anti-theft switch should have been hooked up, as All Data says it does indeed come in the 98, and is ran to the rear modules in the rig. This puzzles me, and angers me at the same time.
So, after another weekend spent trying to repair items already paid for being done, we still have issues with this thing to sort out.
I am going to have Kurt take temporary possession of this rig for a while, and spend some serious time, going over the electrical at his shop. This means removing the engine harness to the fire wall, and the wiring in the dash, and using his high tech instruments, and his professional knowledge, to get this damn rig where it needs to be.... Safe to use, and not worry it's going to burn to the ground on me.
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