Charley B

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SharkSkin

Charley, some of those are for the fan controller and other essential systems. Are you referring to "extra" wires besides the usual "extra" wires?

Charley B

Yes, just the after market stuff.

SharkSkin

You can also try removing the ones that belong there one at a time to see if any of them are the culprit. I understand your hesitation to pull relays -- on the later cars, when the socket gets old and brittle they can be pushed through the panel when you go to reinstall a relay. Just wiggle them in a circular motion to ease them out and ease them in.

Charley B

Thanks Dave. Removing the after market connections at the pos. terminal didn't result in any amperage difference, so I assume removing them one at a time wouldn't change that result.

I'm about half way through the relays, while also keeping up with work, so I'll finish that this evening. If not resolved, I'm going to put it aside, because I have a ton of work to do on the track car to get it ready for the 13th.

Covering work and trying to buy another house combined with my molassis like pace as a wrencher is a very inefficient process.

SharkSkin

Charley, doesn't your car also have a bunch of fat red wires connected to the positive terminal that ARE original? Those are the ones I was referring to in post # 64.

Charley B

Duh!! You did say "that belong there" didn't you. Sorry about that. I think there are three, but I believe they are attached with one connection. I'll check it out when I get back down there.

thanx

Charley B

Pulled the wires that belong on the positive terminal and made no difference. Interestingly, both meters are now reading between 70 and 75mA's, but the analog is doing the rhythmic pegging. I'm starting to wonder if I'm just dealing with some sort of peculularity in the new analog meter.

SharkSkin

Cheap digital meters often won't show spikes. There are meters that have an analog bar across the bottom of the LCD, many flukes and lately some of the less expensive meters. If you're in doubt, substitute a marker light bulb for the meter and see if it gets brighter to that same rhythm.

ew928

Have you pulled the turn signal relay?
The one that makes the turn signals go "blink blink."

Charley B

I have pulled all the relays and all the fuses, one at a time, no joy. I'm going to try Dave's light bulb idea next to verify it's not a meter anomaly.

Charley B

I placed a Tail and Brake lamp bulb (402076C4) between neg. terminal and neg. cable and got no response.

With a 10W interior bulb (6411) I got a slight momentary flicker and then dark.

With the bulb from a 3 cell Mag Lite I get one bright flash at contact and then nothing.

jon928se

Here's a thought.

The car has an alarm. I'm unclear if it's the factory alarm or aftermarket. (but no matter as I don't know the ins and outs of a US factory alarm or unknown to me aftermarket alarm).

Alarms may be wired to flash the parking lights (or alternatively the blinkers but not wired through the cars own blinker or hazard light relay) once when you arm the alarm and twice when you de-arm, or similar, and flash continuously for 5mins then reset when someone tries to steal the car.

If your alarm controller has gone **** up the component of it that flashes the lights could think it is armed and may be trying to flash continuously (for 5 mins) but forgetting to switch off (even if the rest of the alarm system works "normallY").

Why you aren't seeing the parking lights flash could be due to other faults/disconenected wires etc. Too many to speculate but it could be linked to the defrost relay sticking - which is known to feed permanent 12v back into the ign switched 12V side of the board, and who knows what other strange things.

I think the only way you could prove this theory would be to remove the alarm system controller box. BUT not knowing how a factory alarm is wired in to the factory harness this has the potential to disable other non alarm related stuff.

If an aftermarket alarm without an immobiliser fitted into a non factory alarm car the connections made to install the alarm don't cut the factory circuits so its just a disconnect operation. if an immobiliser is part of the alarm you will have to trace the alarm wiring back to factory wiring and work out which factory wires have been cut and how they should be reconnected.

Edit -

Additional thought 1

The hamilton and palmer alarm (installed by Porsche Cars UK from new on 1990 and up 928s) failed in exactly the way I described - would randomly try and flash the blinkers if the ignition wasn't switched on wether the alarm was armed or not and whether the doors were locked or not.

Additional thought 2

The alarm system could be trying to lock (or unlock) the doors rhythmically if it thinks the doors or one door are not as it thinks they should be.

Charley B

All good points ,Jon. I haven't been able to figure the alarm wiring out. There is a little red light that shines continuously, it was mounted in the ashtray lid, but I need to track down the controller and hook up's in order to trouble shoot the system.

SharkSkin

Sounds like you would need a a smaller bulb to get the results I expected. You can use one of the bulbs you have as a voltage divider, if connected in parallel with the meter it will take some of the current and maybe the remaining current going through the meter would then be within the range of the meter. Of course the readings would then be inaccurate but you might get an idea of the relative intensity between the the constant current and the pulse.

Anyway, it sounds like it's time to pull the plugs along the bottom of the CE panel until the pulse goes away; that will narrow it to a particular harness connector. Then repeat the process with jumper wires to determine which wire in that connector is the culprit. It's much harder o type than to do, I could explain it over the phone pretty easily.