Ok i'm going to start with the basics here. I have the Z24 2.4L.
My instrument cluster is the issue. All of the idiot lights will come on when I put the car in any gear. Every light will come on except the check engine light and the coolant light.
When I drive the car, it drives just fine. No problems at all. The weird things that it does is that the tach, temp gauge will go crazy! And by that I mean it'll work intermittently. All of the idiot lights stay on as well. As soon as I come to a stop and idle, the tach and temp gauge will resume normal operation. As soon as I get going again, it goes crazy once again. I will note one thing though, the speedometer is the ONLY thing that works properly ALL the time.
The next thing that it does is that it doesn't want to start sometimes. I'll turn the key and it'll want to seem to fire up. It starts, turns over a few times and then just dies. My fuel pump is fine as far as I know.
So to begin with my attempt at repairing this, I thought that it would just be a bad ground. So i cleaned up all my major grounds and no luck.
The next thing I did was hook up my snap-on scanner to the car and see if I could make something out of it. The weird thing that it does is that the scanner will communicate with the PCM when the car is NOT running. As soon as I start the car, communication is stopped between the scanner and the PCM. I even changed the fuse because I thought it was a bad fuse, and still no luck.
I had also scanned it for codes considering the ABS light is on, air bag light, and supplemental restraint lights are on. Even though they're on, there are no codes present in any of the areas, and I've scanned it many many many times.
Even more frustrated, I decided to changed out the instrument cluster for a different one. I let it reprogram and it still did the same thing. All the idiot lights come on, and it wouldn't start sometimes.
The next thing I did was test the voltages at the ignition switch, and they all appear to be normal.
After that I got a different computer and plugged that in to see if it would make a difference. Still no luck, all the lights would come on and it would still have problems trying to start.
I've checked over on the wires coming out of the computers wiring harness and they appear to be fine.
At this point I'm extremely frustrated and I've spent several hours trying to get to the bottom of this and which it makes me believe that I have a rotten wiring harness, or something is shorting out in the main wiring harness itself.
If anybody has encountered a problem like this and knows where to start, then I would greatly appreciate it!
My instrument cluster is the issue. All of the idiot lights will come on when I put the car in any gear. Every light will come on except the check engine light and the coolant light.
When I drive the car, it drives just fine. No problems at all. The weird things that it does is that the tach, temp gauge will go crazy! And by that I mean it'll work intermittently. All of the idiot lights stay on as well. As soon as I come to a stop and idle, the tach and temp gauge will resume normal operation. As soon as I get going again, it goes crazy once again. I will note one thing though, the speedometer is the ONLY thing that works properly ALL the time.
The next thing that it does is that it doesn't want to start sometimes. I'll turn the key and it'll want to seem to fire up. It starts, turns over a few times and then just dies. My fuel pump is fine as far as I know.
So to begin with my attempt at repairing this, I thought that it would just be a bad ground. So i cleaned up all my major grounds and no luck.
The next thing I did was hook up my snap-on scanner to the car and see if I could make something out of it. The weird thing that it does is that the scanner will communicate with the PCM when the car is NOT running. As soon as I start the car, communication is stopped between the scanner and the PCM. I even changed the fuse because I thought it was a bad fuse, and still no luck.
I had also scanned it for codes considering the ABS light is on, air bag light, and supplemental restraint lights are on. Even though they're on, there are no codes present in any of the areas, and I've scanned it many many many times.
Even more frustrated, I decided to changed out the instrument cluster for a different one. I let it reprogram and it still did the same thing. All the idiot lights come on, and it wouldn't start sometimes.
The next thing I did was test the voltages at the ignition switch, and they all appear to be normal.
After that I got a different computer and plugged that in to see if it would make a difference. Still no luck, all the lights would come on and it would still have problems trying to start.
I've checked over on the wires coming out of the computers wiring harness and they appear to be fine.
At this point I'm extremely frustrated and I've spent several hours trying to get to the bottom of this and which it makes me believe that I have a rotten wiring harness, or something is shorting out in the main wiring harness itself.
If anybody has encountered a problem like this and knows where to start, then I would greatly appreciate it!
Oct 22, 2010 at 9:50 AM