I have a 99 Ford Expedition. I bought it with 18,000 miles on it, now it's a couple clicks from 300,000. The last week it's been running a little rough, almost exactly like when a coil pack is going out. I was waiting for it to throw a code, as in past experience it would sometimes wait for 20-30 miles before the light came on. Well, it hasn't come on, and at about the same time all the digital displays, radio, compass, odometer, etc, would dim and go back to normal in a flashing manner. Only sporadically though, not all the time.

It happened again today, but this time I heard a clicking under the dash, like a turn signal and noticed the displays were in sync with the clicking. I turned the turn signals on to see if it was that relay... Nope. Tried the hazzards, nope. Pulled over to the side of the road pulled off the fuse box lids to see if I could figure out which relay was clicking. Nope, it was like trying to find a cricket. It sounded like it was behind the fuse box, which made no sense to me. Then it stopped clicking, so I just continued home where I could get a better look. What I found was a couple of inline fuses which I knew meant something was added, then I found this black box zip tied under the dash, with a wire that had an RCA phono plug that was plugged into another wire which vanished into the firewall. A bunch of other wires went into that box too. Completely not stock. I did throw a stethoscope in the truck so I can try and pinpoint the clicking if it happens again.

After much research, I figured out that black box is a remote starter! All these years, and all I needed was a remote!

It's shown here, Baretta Alarms Product It's either the MASSTARTNR or the MASSTART222

I did find other people that had "clicking" problems from their remote starter box, though no brand was specified.

Can these things interfere with the engine running if something goes wrong with it?

Can it be removed without putting the wiring back together again?

I think I found the manual for it, so I'm going to look at that further tomorrow.

Thanks for any thoughts on this!

 

I would definitely remove it. See if you can follow the installation instructions in reverse. I would imagine you are going to have to repair the harness. Try to do a good job, see if you can find that paint on electrical tape.

 

Just wanted to check back in and tell you it's resolved.

Today when I went into the store to get a coke, I walked in front of the truck and it was still running. I thought I forgot to turn off the truck, but then I looked down in my hands and the keys were there. Bizarre...

Oh well, got the coke anyway, drove it home and broke out the schematic as I really thought I had a bad ignition switch. But when I pulled that fuse out, it was still running. Finally got the engine shut down, pulled the ground off the battery and unplugged the magical black box. Everything works now. No re-rewiring needed. Found the correct schematic for the remote starter, and all the wires merely tap into existing wire. None were cut during install. Makes for an easy de-installation.