PLEASE HELP! 1985 electrical gone crazy!
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Junior User
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 91
Likes: 0
From: Brunswick, Ohio
PLEASE HELP! 1985 electrical gone crazy!
I have a 1985 F150 4x2, straight-six, manual transmission and my electrical went nuts yesterday. I started the truck up and smoke bellowed out from behind the radio and from under the steering column. The truck then bucked and kicked, the wiper motors went way too fast, and the lights stopped working far from home. I replaced the voltage regulator and the symptoms persisted but I turned on the blower motor to suck up some power and the motor worked ok. I tried to drive her home and the blower motor burnt out, the wipers went on by them selves, and half the dash lights exploded and now the truck is just sitting dead along the highway waiting for a tow.
Please help! What would cause this?
Please help! What would cause this?
Posting Guru
Joined: Jun 1999
Posts: 2,415
Likes: 3
From: Comox Valley, Canada
PLEASE HELP! 1985 electrical gone crazy!
Sounds like you may have had an electrical fire in the wire bundles behind the dash. This could be the cause of the weird things happening as wires for different circuits melted together. I had this happen on my 73 when the resistor wire for the ignition circuit started a mini-fire. I dont know if the 80's trucks still use the resistor wire but if they do your truck could have suffered the same failure mine did. A couple of days work, a package of splices, some new bulbs and several feet of wire and it was as good as new again 
When you get it home remove the dash and have a look. You will be able to see quite easily if there has been a meltdown. Then carefully trace the wires one by one and replace as necessary. After you get it rewired then you can see if you need to replace any components.
Good luck.
Sparky
When you get it home remove the dash and have a look. You will be able to see quite easily if there has been a meltdown. Then carefully trace the wires one by one and replace as necessary. After you get it rewired then you can see if you need to replace any components.
Good luck.
Sparky
Senior User
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 258
Likes: 0
From: Allegan Michigan
PLEASE HELP! 1985 electrical gone crazy!
Start checking the Ground wires on the truck. All of them. If your voltage regulator does not see a path to ground it will go nuts and start pumping high voltage to the whole electrical system on the truck. Looking at the year of the truck it sounds like that might be a good place to start. I had that happen on my 74 years ago and it turned out to be the externial regulator was not mounted good to the truck. Lost a lot of lights and stuff.
Good luck.
Good luck.
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