Hi Everyone,
I am new to the site. I came here trying to find some advice, and have learned a lot already, but I have not yet seen anyone with the same problems I am having. While driving home last night I turned the heater fan control to position 2 and suddenly the instrument cluster lights went out, however, the flasher indicator lights came on constant(no flashing)and the high beam indicator came on as well, although the high beams were not on. Now when I turn on the headlights the blinkers will not work and the lights in instrument cluster will not come on, but the hazard and high beam come on. If the headlight switch is off the insturment cluster lights will come on if the climate control **** is in the off position, the hazard and high beams will go off. If the climate control is changed to any other position the cluster lights go out and hazard and high beam come back on. If I turn the heater fan control **** to a higher position it will make a buzzing sound. I have read about the GEM causing electrical problems could this potentially be the problem here. I checked all the fuses under the hood and under the dash, also checked the wires inside the cab for obvious shorts but could not find any. I have a 1997 F-150 4x2 with 4.2 and Auto transmission. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

How's the battery? I've seen a weak battery cause strange electrical problems.

 

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Wow! Sounds like a short somewhere to me. I have the same year, model, engine and I have not seen anything like this. I'll look at the wiring diagrams in my manual over the weekend to see if/where/how the lights/fan/instrument lights/4 ways are linked.

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One thing you might try to isolate problem (we do this here at work sometimes when troubleshooting our electronics modules as pulling a fuse for any particular circuit kills it) try pulling the fuse for one circuit then the next, etc., as needed, replacing fuses in reverse order as you go along and see if the problem of any individual circuit clears up. This will isolate the faulty one.

Could be a bad battery too.

 

Thanks everyone for your information. The battery seems to work fine, truck starts and runs fine. At one point today the truck was working correctly, but once I shut off the truck and restarted it the problems started back up. I am hoping to get a chance tomorrow to really tear into it and try to isolate the problem. Thanks again for all your help and any other info would be greatly appreciated.

 

The GEM doesn't control ay lighting other than warning lights.
I think I'd be looking at the grounds behind both panels to start with.

 

I have this excat same problem has anyone found a fix for this yet??????????? please i want my truck back ??????????

 

Had something similar on my 97 F150. No dash lights, power windows, etc. Turned out to be a corroded battery cable. The corrosion was hidden in the ground behind the insulation. Since removing the corroded cable, no further problems.

 

I would spend time checking all the grounds, alot of (my problems) issues have been body/engine grounds? May not be yours, it's worth the time to check.

 

Pull both the drivers and passenger side kick panels. Inspect the grounds where the studs attach the wiring to the body.

You will probably find that at least one of them is eaten up by corrosion. I'd do the driver's side first.

Steve

 

I would agree, sounds like a grounding issue to me. If not a ground, then many , but not all of the circuits you are having trouble with are related to the multifunction switch. Maybe it has carbon tracking inside.

 

ok well thank you all very much !!! AND YES it was a ground problem it was the bottom ground behind the passenger side kick panel that was rotted right out of the body. I cut the connection and used the other gound wire there and joined them and re grounded it and all is fixed thank you all very much for the effort and the suggestions

 

Not 30 minutes after i wrote this i was running my truck while I took a shower any ways all seemed fine. Then i walk out the door and the truck had stalled after about 15 minutes of approx. running time at idle. The battery seemed dead too which I don't get because the alternator and the battery are both brand new only a few months old???? i have not tested anything yet but i will be tonight to see if it is charging and what the battery says but till then could anything cause this ???

 

One other thing for an odd set of circumstances, are the fuses. Sometimes you have Chinese fuses, cheap unreliable alloy's, and they might corrode at the fuse ends inside the fuse holder.

If you have something eating your ground connections, you may have too much current flow at the Ground, or somewhere else in the system, another ground is corroded to death.

 

well got home tonight and check and everything works but the new alternator is now not charging infact the battery is draining very fast with the truck running .... does the abs box under the dash cover have something to do with this ?? it was unplugged before i started all this work but i plugged it back in and now this is happening so gonig to try and disconnect it tomorrow and see if that works but how can i blow an laterbnator with the battery unplugged when i was doing all this work and it worked just fine right before i statredand i touched nothing else but that ground that was rotten...
could the other ground that i joined the rotten one too be toouch for one ground? they are the gounds under the fuel reset should i seperate them again and try it that way ?