Good auto electrician near LA?

[afishl1]

I got issues and may possibly need help. Unfortunately I'm in a situation where I can't bring it to the dealership without probably voiding the warranty....

Car has been down for a while now, so any help would def be appreciated.

Obviously as its down, would need someone to come out to me in West LA, although I guess I could try to get it on a flat bed but it's all apart right now and would be mich easier.

[gramicci101]

Get a multimeter and a wiring diagram, and start shooting wires for continuity. When you've found the one that shows infinite resistance instead of no resistance, you've found the problem.

[afishl1]

Where do I get the wiring diagram and how do you go about shooting wires?

[gramicci101]

This thread has wiring diagrams listed at the bottom of the first post.

First things first: visual inspection. Is there a spot where the wires have been pinched in a hinge, or melted against a hot part, or look black and smell like burned plastic? If so, that's probably the issue.

To shoot wires, locate both ends of the same wire. Connect one lead from your multimeter to one end, and the other to the other end. You might need to make jumpers with some speaker wire to get the leads to reach. Set the multimeter to test resistance (ohms). An unbroken wire will have no resistance. A wire with an open will have infinite resistance. What you can also do is go to one end, connect two pins to each other, and then connect your meter to each wire on the other end. You can test both wires at once.

If you have a short, it will probably read some number other than zero, but not infinity. As you break the wire down between individual connectors, the resistance will read less and less.

If your wire runs through multiple connectors, test the complete wire as a whole first, before disconnecting things and testing individual segments. If the entire wire tests good, then there's no need to break the circuit for shorter runs.

If there isn't a spot where the wire itself is damaged (see visual inspection) then it's probably an issue at one of the connectors. Wires don't tend to just break on their own in the middle of a run unless they've been kinked or pinched or squished. Or unless they're in a spot that requires them to move (like in the harness to the door hinges).

It's possible that an actual part is bad, not the wire. If all the wires test good, then start looking at the parts connected to the wires.

Depending on what system is having the problem, this is potentially a very long process. However, you're not paying someone to swap unbroken parts for no reason when the problem is that one wire got pinched somewhere.

[afishl1]

Wow, hopefully it will be a quick find...
Do you think by tapping into a wire and having a relatively long wire coming off of that going to nothing (taped off at the end) could be causing issues?

[wbradley]

Why don't you specify what the actual issue is and perhaps someone will direct you to a solution.

[afishl1]

Its kind of a decently long story so I was kind of trying to avoid it cause I'm being lazy typing through my phone, but here goes, I'll try ro keep it as short as I can:

So I'm doing an HID/angel eye install... ultimately before I get to where I think I may have caused an issue, I'll explain where I'm at now...

Currently every relay/balast/bulb combo test ends up flickering (I'm now pretry certain this is coming from the car output, although the halogen was still working fine although that may not be the case anymore).

Where I think I might have caused an issue is when I decided to listen to some post on here for a ignition power source for the halos. I cut open the taped up bundle of wires coming out of the engine bay fuse box and then cut, after a lil pulling for slack, the red/green (alternator wire), then soldered a new 14gauge wire to that cut wire to tie all 3 ends together. This new wire (that I'm not even going to use anymore) is long and leads to nothing atm(taped at the end) til I cut it short and tape up/silicon it. I'm fairly certain I didnt cut any other wires but concerned that when I pulled that wire for slack I may have made a loose connection somewhere.

After doing this I thought maybe the battery was just low and was going to start the car, but thought I remembered that I needed to reflash (apparently I didnt) after disconnecting from the battery at points in the install.

When I went to flash, I got an error when ecutek was trying to download the rom to the car. Found thread about this, but new software update didnt help me and now the whole dash board also flickers when I turn the car on (not the engine).

I'm hoping its a simple fuse swap out as I would not like to open up that nw siliconed bundle of wires coming out of the fuse box.

May try a test light to negative terminal on the battery and pull out each fuse to see if I have a short/fried wire... thinking the wire diagram may be my new best friend.

[continuecrushing]

wow.

So, first of all, I would swap everything back to how it was...remove hids/halos etc. Repair the bundle of wires that you cut/re-connect things how they were stock.

For ecutek, what mods do you have? Do you NEED to have a tune(flash) for your car to run? Or do you just have bolt-ons. If you only have bolt-on stuff, I would keep the stock tune on the car/re-flash the stock tune on the car(for now).

Otherwise, right now you're trying to solve an issue with too many variables.

Then go through and check all fuses. When everything is running good, then go and start with the hid install stuff/ecutek stuff again.

And after you flash the car again, you don't have to "reflash" it until you either A) Change the tune, and need to update the car, or B) are reflashing back to stock...the car does not need to be reflashed every time the battery is disconnected.

In all honesty, once everything is good again(assuming you don't end up taking the car somewhere to be fixed) try and find locals to help you with the hid/halo install or take the car somewhere for the install(preferred method).

[wbradley]

Originally Posted by Shutter

wow.

So, first of all, I would swap everything back to how it was...remove hids/halos etc. Repair the bundle of wires that you cut/re-connect things how they were stock.

THEN, get someone knowledgeable with this stuff to do the install.

Problem solved.

[afishl1]

Well, I'm happy to report that I'm back up and running for now. I cut the long wire much shorter and fully charged the battery and I have no more flicker in either my dash or when I test my HIDs and was able to reflash my tune again

As I continue with the install I wont be leaving the HIDs on w/o the engine running