Napster134

I'm still having problems with my car and was able to verify that the ECM was not the problem. I plugged in my old ECM and the problem still persists.

My main problem:

Fuel pump primes when I turn on the

-Brake Lights (By pressing on the brake pedal)
-Hazard lights
-Turn Signals
-Headlights
-And when the key is in turned to the RUN position (Just like its supposed to)

The fuel pump will not prime at all when you turn on the lights listed above if the key is not in the RUN position.

Napster134

I organized the details above. I've been trying to find out the problem this whole weekend and I'm just completely lost.

I've replaced almost every sensor in the whole car and completely out of money. :/

If someone could please help me out with this electrical mess, I would greatly appreciate it!

btw, Happy 4th of July everyone!

affliction1

id say stright wire the pump to the battary and use a 15 amp fuseable link

Napster134

I thought about doing that actually! But how exactly would I go about doing that?

There are 3 wires going to the fuel pump.

I believe the gray one is the main power wire that only turns on when the pump primes and stays on when the engine is running.

I do know that the oil pressure switch also provides the pump power once the oil pressure builds up after 4psi I think?

The black is ground and then I have no idea what the pink one does.

Napster134

Of course, the pink one tells me how empty my gas tank is lol
So that one is out of the question.

Napster134

I tried a few things to see if I could isolate the problem. But not really any luck.

I plugged each of these back in after every test to keep it all isolated to a single thing.

Also, all of these tests were done with the key in the RUN position.
And I noticed that when I plugged the fuses back in, the pump would prime as well.

1. Disconnected coil:
Pump did not prime with any of the lights being turned on.

2. Disconnected distributor:
Pump did not prime with any of the lights being turned on.

3. Removed Stop Haz 20A fuse:
Hazard and brakes do not prime pump. Turn signals and headlights still prime pump.

4. Remove Turn B/U fuse 20A:
Turn signals do not prime pump. Headlights, hazards, and brakes still prime pump.

5.Removed Tail Fuse 20A:
All lights still primed pump.

6.Removed ACC Fuse 20A:
All lights still primed pump.

7.Removed LPS Fuse 5A:
All lights still primed pump.

8.Removed Fog LPS Fuse 20A:
All lights still primed pump.

9. Checked to see if the brown wire going to my rear brake lights has power:
Did not have power with any of the lights activated.

10. Disconnected ECM:
All lights work and fuel pump did not prime.

11. Made sure ECM was not the issue by swapping it out for a different ECM.
Problem remained the same.

12. Replaced Fuel pump fuse and hazard lights fuse
Problem remained the same.

13.Disconnected harness leading to rear lights.
Brake switch no longer primed pump but all other lights still primed the pump)



I'm completely confused as to what the heck this could be. I looked at a whole bunch of wiring diagrams and nothing ever merges the fuel pump to the car lights.

I attached a wiring diagram that I've been looking at which made me point to the BRN wire that seems to be going to all of the lights from front to rear.

Sorry for all of the confusing problems. I'm thinking it may just be easier to rig something up so that it everything works without interfering with the pump.

Napster134

I got an old headlight and started using it to test all my grounds, I though a headlight would work best as this would also be testing the resistance of the grounds as well.

When I touched the ground at the rear of the engine that I have mounted onto my rear intake bolt (The one that the ECM uses to ground itself) The fuel pump primed and the headlight still turned on.

Now the weird thing is that I cant really duplicate this. It seems like I can duplicate this. After I wait a minute or 2 and then try it again. The fuel pump will prime again.

So I went ahead and disconnected all of the grounds and started sanding them down, cleaned them up. All my grounds work and turn on the big headlight.

This is really weird. But the problem remains the same. :/

affliction1

try running car for 5-10mins,and feel the ground straps,and negative battary cables,if there hot not grounded good enough reground it

Napster134

My ground wires are positive! ... they have 12volts of power going to them. Obviously there's a short somewhere.
The wires that are positive are the passenger and drivers side engine block grounds.

The wires ONLY have power when the key in the RUN position.

Drivers side:
Has 2 connectors that both lead to a single ground bolt.
If I separate the two connectors from the bolt, one of them is hot and the other one is not.

1.HOT Connector: TAN wire and Black/White wire (2 wires)
2.Other connector: Looks like a brown or red wire. This one is not hot. (1 wire)

Looks like TAN wire goes to the ECM. The Black/White wire goes inside the drivers side firewall.

Passenger side:
Has 3 connectors that both lead to a single ground bolt.
If I separate the 3 connectors from the bolt, one of them is hot and the other 2 are not.

1.HOT Connector: Black/White wire and another Black/White wire. (2 wires, same color)
2.Other Connector: Solid Black wire and another Solid Black wire. Neither are hot. (2 wires,same color)
3. Ground strap from firewall to ground bolt.

One of the Black/White wires goes to the ECM.
The other Black/White wire goes to a splice that outputs the ground (Well, not in my case) to 4 wires.
I did separate the 2 wires and they both remained HOT
The 4 HOT wires seem to go to these locations:

1. ECM
2. Fuel pump relay
3. Power steering
4. Inside the drivers side firewall.


So confused. Tried to explain it as organized as I could.

Napster134

I drew up a diagram using Paint to show which wires are the hot wires.

Every wire that is in the diagram is supposed to be a ground yet they are all receiving power.

I left out the connectors and grounds that are not hot.
Which are the ones below:

-The circle connector with 2 solid black wires. (Passenger side engine ground)
-Other circle connector with 1 brown wire. (Driver side engine ground)


-The black circles at the corner of the engine are the ground bolts.
-The other black circle is simply a splice that leads to a total of 5 ground locations.
-The tanish colored wire looks as though it is simply an ECM ground according to the real wiring diagram.
-And yes, those are Black/White wires.
(I'm a bit color blind so I'm not sure if that is tan but its close enough)

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Sounds to me like you need a fairly heavy gauge wire from the engine block to the frame. (like the straps the factory used between the back of the heads and the firewall... maybe, just find those and hook them back up?)

Leave all the other wires ALONE, concentrate on that one thing until you get the car to where ground is ground throughout the vehicle. ANYTHING else you change or hack on, you'll just have to go back and undo and do back right, once you get The Real Problem fixed. Which will be a REAL EASY fix, for sure.

affliction1

just sounds like bad battary grounds if there readin 12 volts,buy new grounds and try regrounding it.if they felt hot(vary warm) then there not grounding good.replace them try to ground them better if possible

Napster134

Just wanted to give you guys an update on this.

First of all my car still has the same problem. The fuel pump still turns on when I turn on either the headlights, brake lights, hazards, or turn signals.

I was able to verify that the hot ECM wires are normal as their is current flowing through the ECM with the ignition on. The wires then turn into true grounds once they are grounded to the rear of the engine. And I was able to get my old ground strap back on and all of my grounds back together so I am starting back from step one.


One thing that I did notice was that when I disconnect the ingition coil, the problem stops! My lights no longer prime the fuel pump. Only the key just as it should.

When I plug the coil back in, the problem continues.

I have had my car completly torn apart and have got most of it back together now.

I am getting help from Bobr, and a few others as well. So hopefully I find out the problem soon but having my car not going right is really bugging me.

Hope to get all the help I can get!

Napster134

So I replaced the Coil, Pick up Coil, and ICM.

Problem remains the same.

The distributor is sending a reference pulse to the ECM whenever one of the lights are turned on.

I tried a test that I thought was pretty weird, I went ahead and wrapped a wire on my positive battery terminal, I then touched the hot wire to one of my strut mounts and it caused the fuel pump to prime.

I then touched the same hot wire to the rear engine grounds and it caused my fuel pump to prime. But the funny thing is, when I disconnect the coil and spark the hot wire on the frame, the fuel pump no longer primes.

Any thoughts? I'm thinking one of my grounds is probably hot?

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Did you ever hook up a ground strap between the engine block and the "frame"? (firewall, those rails beside the engine, or similar)

Quit replacing stuff; nothing is broke, your car just isn't hooked up right.

Napster134

Yes, I did hook the ground strap back up. Everything is back together the way it was before.

All of the wiring in my car is stock which is why I dont understand how this all happened out of nowhere. The only thing that was ever done was a stereo being hooked up which I put in 2 years ago.

Actually its disconnected right now since I have most of the dash apart but I've been testing everything and cant seem to find anything wrong.

I have a multimeter and test light that I've been testing alot of the wiring with and just cant seem to really find anything obvious.

Starting to think about buying a whole complete harness but for all I know that may not fix the problem either... dont even know if they would sell a complete harness for these cars anymore.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Then when you touched the hot wire to the chassis, instead of the fuel pump priming, stuff should have burned up. Since it didn't, that's PROOF POSITIVE that your chassis is not hooked to your battery.

For whatever reason, your chassis and your engine/battery are still not connected to each other, on the negative (ground) side.

Add another ground wire. Go to Da Zohhhnnnn and pick your self up a short battery type of cable with eye terminals at both ends. DOesn't have to be a mondo huge one, a the lightest gauge (highest #) they have will do fine, cost maybe $5. Hook one end to wherever your neg batt cable is attached to the block, and the other end to the "frame", under an existing bolt. Sand the place under each end down to clean bare unpainted unrusted metal first.

A "harness" will not fix this problem.

Stop trying to outsmart yourself. This is REALLY REALLY simple.

Napster134

Well, When I touch the hot wire to the frame, I did not hold it down to the frame for any longer than a second for that same reason, I did not want to burn anything out. So when I do this test, I am simply just barley sparking the frame for a split second.


I actually had a ground wire already hooked to the engine head bolt and its a 4 gauge wire, If I hold the other end of that 4gauge wire to the battery/frame ground bolt, the problem does not go away... :/

I tried grounding that same wire to the strut mount as well, and well no fix...

I feel that this should be a simple fix too but none of the simple fixes seem to work

I just wish it was that easy...





If you want to see how deep we have taken this problem you can take a look at this: :/

http://www.justanswer.com/pontiac/58...the-brake.html

Napster134

Just came across something weird. I felt that since the problem is related to the distributor, I would take it out and see if it was doing anything weird.

While I was taking the cap off, I heard the fuel pump go on, So I went ahead and hit the distriburor with my small screwdriver and it primed again.

So then I got the plastic side of the screwdriver and hit the plastic rotor housing and it primed again!

If I simply just tap it at the bottom with the plastic handle, my fuel pump will prime. Just thought this was really weird and seems like its almost too sensitive...

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Fill in the blanks:

My negative battery cable goes from __________ to ___________ (on engine).

I have ground wires/straps between __________ (on engine) to ___________ (on chassis).

If I put my voltmeter between the negative battery terminal (on the battery itself) and the chassis, and then turn on the key, the meter reads ____ volts.

Napster134

I'm offically a "Member" of the 3rd gen forum! lol 100 posts.

I filled in the blanks above!

Only reads 00.01 for the 2 seconds that the fuel pump is priming. Once the pump is done priming it will go back to 00.00 volts

If I turn on the lights it will go back to 00.01 volts.

Sometimes it will hit 00.02 for a spit second.

Napster134

So I ended up figuring out why the lights were priming the fuel pump.

Note: NEVER put any engine grounds on an aluminum intake. Found out aluminum was not a good enough ground for my rear ECM grounds that were supposed to be originally at the back of the cylinder head.

So I went ahead and moved the ECM grounds to the back of the cylinder head where they were originally before I had swapped my engine.

Anyways, Now we are back to the initial issue.

Which I posted here:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...ve-brakes.html

The engine stalling when at a complete stop. Only stalls in when the transmission is in Drive.

Sometimes it will stall when I am actually driving the car and moving but I can mainly predict it if I am at a complete stop and in drive after about 10-30 seconds.



So I went ahead and took the stupid route to replace almost everything and well just to let you guys know whats been done/replaced:

I have also been through almost all of the wiring in the whole car.

-Replaced Spark Plugs
-Replaced TPS(twice)
-Replaced Alternator
-Replaced Ignition Module(twice)
-Replaced IAC valve
-Replaced O2 Sensor
-Replaced fuel filter (twice lol)
-Replaced MAP sensor and vacuum line going to MAP sensor
-Replaced Ignition Coil
-Replaced the in tank fuel pump strainer
-Cleaned all grounds and made a 3 point ground with 4 gauge wire all around engine
-Had injectors sent to Motorman and pressure cleaned
-Timing is perfect at 10 degrees
-Checked for vacuum leaks with brake cleaner
-Checked distributor cap and rotor, looks perfect (Brand new MSD distributor been installed for less than 4 months)
-Adjusted my roller rockers to perfect spec (w/ 3/4 of a turn after 0 lash)
-Disconnected TBI and sprayed all through with air compressor
-Disconnected and plugged brake booster vacuum to see if it had to do with the brakes
-Dropped fuel tank and blew through all lines, cleaned up fuel pump grounds
-Placed ECM grounds back to original location.
-Replaced Pickup coil
-Ended up buying a new distributor just to test if it was the distributor.
-Replaced TPS connector

So pretty much the I have found the following things wrong with my car:

-When I disconnect my TPS, the problem goes away when at a stop and in drive .. I dont think I would be able to drive it like this as the engine wont really rev.
Right when I have someone connect the TPS back, the engine stalls usually right away.

-My Canister purge solenoid has 12volts of power even when the KOEO. If I remove the gauges fuse, it loses its power.

- And when it stalls while driving, I cant get fuel out of the injectors... I have to wait a few minutes before I can start it up again. ... (Well previously this would happen, havn't tried driving it after the new distributor and TPS)


Thanks for all the help! ... My car has been in the garage for 2 months now

Napster134

All I could really think of is bad wiring for the TPS at the ECM, or the canister purge solenoid causing the problem?

Please let me know if you guys have any thoughts.

This all happened after I installed some 1.6.1 roller rockers (Which I already checked the lash on about 3 times ) and after I removed my Smog pump... Tried plugging back in the pump connectors and same problem ....

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

OK, we've got part of the ground issue resolved...

Apparently your intake is not grounded. It's not that aluminum isn't "a good enough" ground though, especially given tha tmost modern engines seem to do just fine with all-aluminum engines; it's just disconnected from the rest of the engine for whatever reason. Plastic washers under the bolt heads maybe? Hard to say. No matter; rather than piddle around with that, just use some brute force.

Now, at least the ECM is grounded; but all of those sensors and other electrical things that are mounted in and on the intake and that are supposed to be "grounded" by it, such as the TPS, CTS, and so on, maybe even the dist itself, evidently aren't.

Find a nice convenient bolt hole in the intake (throttle cable bracket might be a good candidate), and make a nice thick wire (#12 or larger) with a ring terminal at one end to go under that bolt, and a ring at the other end that you can put under the bolt with the ECM grounds at the head, to ground the intake.

Then once you at least restore the integrity of the electrical system, you can look around and maybe see what's insulating the intake from the block and heads.

Since you hacked that off:



Don't forget to put a SHORT bolt in this hole right here with a drop of sealer on the threads, to prevent you from making your next post, which will be about a mystery oil leak from the front seal or pan gasket, spewing oil all over the lower right side of the engine and on the exhaust but only at high RPM, that you just can't seem to find.

Napster134

Will do! lol... Well I would assume, intake gaskets, silicone, and well maybe intake bolts that go through water jackets and all is what could be isolating the intake.

Bobr informed me that aluminum sometimes "forms a protective coating" and well that would explain the white powdery stuff around my previous ECM ground intake bolts! ...


Only thing that I could determine that would be grounded to the intake is the distributor since all of the sensors seem to have their own black ground wire....

But anyways, Ill go ahead and make a few ground points at the intake and see if that does the trick.



I'll make sure that bolt hole is covered up too lol

Thanks for the all the help, sofakingdom.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Good luck!!

You can measure the voltage betwen the neg terminal of the batt, and any would-be ground points (including the shell or black wire of any sensor or other "thing"), to determine if they're really grounded... obviously as little voltage as practical would be the goal, ceratinly no more than a tenth of a volt or so.

Napster134

Ok, So I'm almost sure I know what the problem is now. Still dont know what is the cause though.

I did go ahead and place a ground from the distributor bolt to the firewall with 18gauge wire and well still got the same issue :/

I ran a data log with my EBL flash.

When the engine is running everything is going perfect and all of a sudden, the sPW drops from a constant 1.5-2.2 mV reading to 0.0 and then from then on the RPMs start to drop steady and fast.

You can put the data log in slow motion and watch how it happens.

So pretty much the injectors stop pulsing.

I did a test and was able to verify that the 12v power side of my injectors have a perfect reading all thoughout the stall. Had my mom put the car in drive and I got my voltometer and tested the positive side of each injector. I have 13.2 volts before and after the stall.

My TPS 5 volt refrence stays steady all throughout the stall.
and my actual TPS signal also reads 0.61 volts all throughout the stall.

I still find it funny how the TPS being disconnected seems to solve the problem
Also think its pretty weird that the problem only happens when in gear and not in Park or Neutral.


One thing that I did notice that I did not like was one of the pins for the 4wire connector on the distributor.

With the KOEO went ahead and removed 4pin connector at the back of the distributor:

Black/Red Distributor ground refrence low: 0.74 volts
:O

Napster134

Well still haven't been able to fix the problem Although I did isolate the problem to the injector pulse quitting.
But pretty much what is happening is that the injector PW all of a sudden drops to 0.0 and after that, the engine stalls.

I was thinking that the only things that could stop the injector PW would be the following:

-ICM failing to produce a steady 1.3v signal to the ECM (I had replaced the ICM and pickup in my previous distributor then ended up installing a new distributor)
-12v Power side of injectors (fused side) failing (I tested the power side of each injector while the stall and they both have about a 12-13.2 volts before, during, and after the stall.)
-TPS reading (The gray wire does have 5 volts and the blue one has 0.60 volts, the black ground wire has no voltage. Replaced the sensor and the 3 wire connector going to it)
-VATS (tested pin at ECM while running and during the stall, it had about 3 volts I believe)
-Bad injectors? Havnt tested them yet but I've never heard of the injectors going bad.

I tested a lot of the pins at the ECM to make sure that something was not giving the ECM an incorrect voltage or losing voltage and causing the stall but all of the pins tested out OK during, before, and after the stall.

These are all of the pins that I tested:

A6 Ignition feed: 12v
A11 Sensor ground: 0.01v
A12 ECM ground: 0.02v

B1 Battery: 12v
B3 Battery: 12v
B5 Seemed to die out along with the engine... they both died out together. But 1.23v when running
B6 I think it was about 3.something volts.

C13 TPS: 0.60v
C14 5v Reference: 5v
C16 Battery: 12v

D1 ECM ground: 0v
D2 Map sensor ground: 0v

I dont see what else would cause the injectors to quit pulsing.
The TPS being disconnected fixes the problem but dont understand why since the TPS wiring is reading perfect.
Neither do I understand why the problem only happens while the transmission is in gear and not in park/neutral.

caaraa

There are 3 wires going to the fuel pump.

Napster134

Yup Lol... that question with the smiley was pretty funny... are you having issues with your car because I don't see how that would help me lol .... But one goes to the ECM, other goes to the fuel pump relay and the other one goes to a ground.

Napster134

I fixed the stalling problem!

Thanks to Bobr!


It was the "MALF33 - MAP Hi BARO Limit (1bar)" setting within my EBL.... the limit was too low for the vacuum that my car was putting out at idle when in drive.

The limit was set at 67 and well my kpa was hitting higher than that... it was about 65-70kpa.

I went ahead and set it the limit to 80 and that fixed the problem!



Remember this:
"Now this all started happening after I did a rear end swap, 1.6 Roller rockers, and smog pump removal, and new fuel filter."

The rockers must have contributed to increasing the vacuum pressure and caused it to top off the limit...

I was informed that when the limit is toped off it sets the MAP value to a default 45kpa ... well that would have caused my ECM to stave the engine out of fuel.


Thanks for all of the help everyone!

Went ahead and copy/pasted this response over at my other thread as well... hopefully this will help out someone who installed a cam in their car and is having the same stalling issue due to the MAP reading being too high.