Hey guys have a resistor wire behind the gauges that is getting HOT! Wondering if anybody would possibly know what this wire would be and where it goes! It is red with a green stripe I believe kind of faded a little, any help I would appreciate it!

 

RED with GREEN stripe is the ballast resistor for the coil; if it's getting hot, it's shorting to ground downstream. This wire leads to the positive (+) terminal of the coil under the hood. You'll need to trace the wire until you find the short; check for frayed or damaged insulation.

 

Awesome thanks could that be what's causing my battery to drain? And if it us grounding out somewhere how do you fix it, it says do not cut or splice do you have to run a new wire or what!

 

It's not likely, because this signal is only powered with the key turned to RUN (unless there is an issue with your ignition switch). There are various ways to find a battery drain; the easiest is to disconnect the negative battery cable and install a test light between the battery cable clamp and the post (putting it in series). You'll need to make sure anything that would otherwise draw power with the truck off (like leaving the door open and keeping the dome light on) are shut off. If there's a drain, the light will glow when everything else should otherwise be shut off. You can start pulling fuses one by one until the light goes out. If the fuse panel is empty and the light still stays on, then there are some other tricks to play from there.

However, the battery drain is a secondary priority; the first priority is the hot resistor wire; because too much of this can smoke your wiring harness. The reason it says "do not cut or splice" is because the entire length of the wire acts as a 1.4-ohm resistor. It's not a plain wire like others; instead it's specially doped to build resistance over its length. If you were to change its length, you would change its resistance, and change the voltage divider at the coil. The resistance wire is a kludgy way to reduce the current through the coil primary winding - but to its defense, this method helps dissipate the heat it generates more effectively than if the resistor were a single element.

To figure out how to fix it, you'll first need to find why it's shorted, as I described previously. Personally, I would start by disconnecting the coil and checking the primary winding resistance of the coil (measure resistance between the + and - terminals), making sure the coil is not shorted. If that checks out, then I would probe upstream by checking the resistance between the (+) terminal of the horseshoe connector and ground. It should be open-circuit, but if there's a short to ground like I suspect, you will see finite resistance. Do all this with the truck off - I wouldn't turn the truck back on until you've found the short. The coil primary circuit is a dangerous circuit to short.

 

D1AZ-12250-A .. Resistor Wire-Ignition Coil (Motorcraft DY-84-A) / Obsolete

60" long / Color coded red w/green stripes / 1.30-1.40 ohms resistance / #16 gauge wire.

BAYER FORD in Comanche TX has 3 = 325-356-2777.

GREEN SALES CO. in Cincinnati OH has 6 = 800-543-4959.

CARPENTER NOS OBSOLETE PARTS in Concord NC has 14 = 800-476-9653.

 

Buy the NOS wire ND is listing, or Borg Warner carries the replacement wire for $17 (local price).

 

One more question did the 3g swap and hooked up my electric choke up to the positive on my coil could that possibly be doing it? Thanks for all the help!

 

Absolutely. Remove that immediately and inspect the resistor wire for damage along its entire length. The resistor wire is not rated to pull extra current, and any load tied in parallel with the coil primary winding will change the voltage divider at the coil.

IMPORTANT: Never tie any electrical load to the positive (+) terminal of the coil, as this point is downsteram of the ballast (resistor wire). The only item that is acceptable to tie to this point is a radio suppression capacitor, because it's not a DC load.

Note that none of this eliminates the possibility that you have a short to ground, which you should still investigate.

 

That would be adding more draw on that wire so a possibility. Nothing should be added to the ignition circuit.
Edit: Too slow typing this morning

 

Ah so where do you recommend hooking that up to then! I read to hooked it up to the positive on the coil in a thread a while back! So there is probably others out there with the same problem and don't know its getting hot I was just lucky enough to be digging around in my dash and felt it! Unless I read it wrong I could swear I did it how it said to do it!

 

Thread: 3g alternator install with pictures, was the thread I read it on! Did I not read it right or what? About 3/4 the way down on the first page of the thread it talks about it!

 

Reading the thread, he was confused a bit also. Here is a link to another thread about wiring the choke: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...hoke-wire.html

 

Ok so I undid the choke wire on the coil, wire still gets hot undid all the electrical tape starting by the gauges. I got down probably six inches or so from the fuse box. Low and behold there is a wire spliced into it, brown wire runs to the solenoid! Continued to follow the wire through the dash into a plug which from there goes to the positive on the coil from plug on looks good!

Ok so now where does the other end of the resistor wire hook up to? Im sure ill end up tearing all of it apart anyways but at least I know where I'm headed with that wire!

 

And also where should that brown wire that goes to the "I"post of the solenoid tie into?

 

The positive (+) terminal of the coil from the engine bay branches off to two places - BROWN, which is hot-in-START from the 'I' terminal of the solenoid, and the RED/GREEN resistor wire which is hot-in-RUN from the ignition switch. The RED/GREEN wire (where it's marked as a resistor wire) acts as the ballast for the coil when in RUN, the BROWN wire bypasses the ballast while the motor is turning over.

Have you checked the primary winding resistance of your coil yet? It's almost impossible to solve electrical issues without a multimeter. If your wiring checks out, the coil might be shorted internally.