I've been having some major electrical issues lately. Some of them I have a good idea how to fix, others have me completely stumped .
1. Back in the day I replaced the plastic mechanism in the ignition switch. When I did that, I believe I damaged the clockspring . Now my horn and cruise control don't work. I'm going to replace the clockspring and see if that fixes them.
2. Door locks used to be intermittent, now they don't even pulse anymore. I replaced all lock actuators and that didn't help.
3. When engaging high beams, the entire dash goes dark (instrument panel , hvac, etc) the high beams work. Weird.
4. The "your lights are left on" chime randomly starts chiming after about an hour of driving. It eventually goes off, but it's super annoying.
5. The previous owner installed a momentary switch to bypass the automatic glow plug relay (in an effort to prolong glow plug life). The idea is not to have them heat up in the summer when it's already hot. This switch has been getting increasingly worse. It now works about 5% of the time. Unsure if the issue is the switch itself or the glow plug relay or something entirely different. The gpr is not east to get to? Though I do have a replacement with me on the road.
6. I just noticed this one last week. My drivers rear tail light isn't working with the parking lights (or the regular headlights for that matter). I've replaced the bulb. No dice. I've swapped the connector/bulb receptacle with the pass side. That didn't fix it. Weirdly enough, when I connect my airstream, the airstream's trailer lights don't turn on when I put the parking lights on (they used to), but they do turn on when I fully turn the lights on.
Most of these happened in the past month. This leads me to believe that there is a common ground wire coming loose. I'm no electrical genius, and finding info on these vans is tricky. I've replaced the ground strap between the frame and body (It's been cut since I bought the van. No difference with the new one). Ill double-check the connection between the ground to the battery and the body.
Are there any other grounds I should check ? I don't easily see any others. I wonder if I have a fried circuit board/ecu somewhere. Some quick troubleshooting tips or simiar experiences would be great.
... I miss my tototas... too bad they never made a 1 ton van...
