having issues with my 2002 F-150; I see where the topic has been spoke on before but haven't read where anyone was able to find a fix

background story - while driving the truck if you hit bumps sometimes the gauges would wipe themselves but always come back. Occasionally the truck wouldn't start right away, give it a good southern kick and waalah the truck would turn over.

current situation - odometer reads Error ( yes I can access the "test mode" but do not know what codes I am looking for) and the theft light is blinking fast indicating the PATs system is engaged.

I have tried every single unplug the battery, turn the key, fuse checking while standing on my head and singing I am a little tea pot try I can find. I only have one key to the truck ( the other is at the bottom of a river where it feel out of a canoe years ago ).

how do I clear the error code on the odometer?

how do I clear the theft system that is engaged? (key first? locksmith first? dealer only item?)

 

If the gauge issue only happened when hitting bumps then you probably had an intermittent contact on the ground side that's now completely open.

I can't tell you exactly where to look, but the instrument cluster and PATS module probably share the same ground - you'll be looking for ground studs on the firewall near the steering column and behind the driver side kick panel - maybe under the carpet as well.

 

This sounds like a short or open in the cluster harness or in the cluster itself.

I would start by pulling the dash apart to get to the instrument cluster so I could inspect the wiring harness going up to it. Look for places where the harness may be rubbing.

PATS lives in the cluster. You might also want to carefully pull the cluster apart so you can inspect the solder joints. There have been a lot of cases reported of issues with the odometer blanking due to bad solder joints that are easily fixed by heating and re-flowing.

I'm not sure it will help much if you have a connection problem but forscan software with an elm327 adapter plugged into the obd2 port will give you any PATS codes in the case that it is a PATS issue. You can also program new keys with forscan.