Wagon revolts to window tinting

This is a fun/sad story.

Took the wagon in to get the windows tinted. Guy realizes when I get there he quoted me for a sedan. He doesn't say anything and just starts to do the work. He gets about 7/8 of the way done (after 3 hours) and says the passenger window won't roll down. This is strange since I have never had that issue before. I go out there and yep it won't roll down.

We look at the switches and can see the lights dimming as you move the switch. Sounds like a locked up motor, but we find the passenger door switch stuck in the down position. Fix that and thought maybe the window relay had tripped since it was trying to go down permanently.

Waited forever, no luck. So, I decide the best option is to just lower the window manually. Yeah, long story short that didn't work either.

So, I pay for work done and the last window and just say I will be back in a couple of weeks. I get in the car and head home. As I am turning onto the freeway onramp all the lights on the dash turn on (dim), coolant gauge goes to hot, speedo dies, and fuel gauge dies (car still running). Then a cloud of smoke appears from the center vent in the dashboard. I pull over and shut the car off, thinking I was about to lose the car. It continued to billow smoke, so I called the fire department.

Just before they get there and I had unloaded the whole car, the smoking stops. No actual fire yet. Fire dept. shows up and car is now not doing anything. We talk for a few minutes and I start the car back up. Everything is now working normally. No smoke......nothing. All gauges work fine. I start checking things, switches, etc. and nothing is inop.

I have a nervous laugh with the fire guys and follow them to their exit (on my way home too).

Guess what starts working again...........the window that wouldn't roll down for the window tint. I have no idea what happened, or why there was smoke. It hasn't happened again.

  

Obviously a electrical issue but I dont know what kind it might be,is your fuse panel OK?What I mean do any of the fuses show signs of excessive heat?Something caused all that smoke!

All the fuses look fine. I have not had a chance to take the dash pad off to find the wires that got crispy.

By any chance is it a 1994? (auxiliary battery post)

Tom

It is a 1994

Take a look at your auxiliary battery post, see below.

Tom

http://www.impalassforum.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=237690

I was just reading that. The only thing that doesn't make sense is that batt post is under the hood. I didn't have any underhood issues. The smoke was coming from only the center defrost vent. I can check that as well.

foglght wrote:

I was just reading that. The only thing that doesn't make sense is that batt post is under the hood. I didn't have any underhood issues. The smoke was coming from only the center defrost vent. I can check that as well.

Was your defroster on when it happened? The air intake is under the cowl right behind the battery post.

I don't think it would have been on. It is possible though.

These cars are hard to tint, especially the back glass, whether sedan or wagon.  Tip to sedan owners - remove the rear seatback, remove all of the rear deck interior trim including carpet, speaker covers, CHMSL, etc, and then reinstall the back seat base.  Your tint guy will thank you.

My guess is you got a pinched hot wire somewhere either in the dash or under the hood.   I would start under the hood first and work your way from the battery to the alternator to the starter to the underhood fuse box to the big mass of wires that goes through the passender side firewall.  

Inside the car, look very carefully from that plug on the passenger side under the dash over to the steering column.  Spend a lot of time looking under the steering column area.  I once had smoke in my old RMW from a wire that had gotten pinched between a sharp edge on the steering column base and the white plastic channel that corrals the harness that goes up the steering column.

EDIT - I would also check the blower motor resistor just for kicks.

Even if that's not the issue, change that battery post ASAP.

They are a major fire hazard. A guy lost a very nice wagon of his at the end of last year from a fire that started because of that post.

Don't be that guy.

It could be that the wire causing the short burned off, and something is not going to work one of these days. The windows use a circuit breaker, and the motors have individual overload breakers internally as well. You would not get smoke from the post in the engine compartment, because the hood has a seal at the rear to keep fumes out of the passenger compartment. Whatever caused the smoke was in the ductwork, because it is sealed from the wiring except for the fan, its control resistors, or if something melted a hole in it, and then, it would blow the smoke out of the duct at the hole. Check your internal fuse block for any melted areas. Mine melted where a loose connector was located.

So, is there another post inside the fuse block on the passenger side wheel well? I noticed when I was finishing up the exhaust manifold replacement there is a post on the outside of the fuse block.

foglght wrote:

So, is there another post inside the fuse block on the passenger side wheel well? I noticed when I was finishing up the exhaust manifold replacement there is a post on the outside of the fuse block.

Bingo!

I'm confused. Are you saying there is another post inside the fuse block?

Yes this is what silverfox103's earlier post was in reference too. Check out his link. There is just the one but year its in there/part of it.

The actual post, I believe is on the outside of the auxiliary fuse box.  It has a cap on it, all you have to do it pop the cap off.  Go look, it is pretty obvious.

Tom

It is exterior to the box. If it iis NOT brass replace with a brass one from the junkyard. All 95-96 bodies have a brass one

Yikes! That's scary. Hope you find out what's going on.

I had a power window motor burn up while my '92 OCC was getting inspected. Driver's front door. Car passed inspection and then the window would not roll up! And MAN it stunk! I never saw smoke, but smelled it.

Glad you window came back to life. Sounds like a short to me!

-Mike

There is more smoke. Really annoyed this is happening.

Cliffs notes:

Lights stay on, radio is shorted to power, cluster gauges are inop, check engine light apparently works. Climate, interior lights, and windows work.

Hit a bump, smoke started coming out the center vent. Car seems to run fine (drove it home after realizing it wasn't on fire). The haynes manual is a bit useless for wiring diagrams at this point. I do not have a FSM.

I'm pretty bummed out.







I can't tell what these wires go to. Looks like a black wire and something else, but can't tell what color that used to be. The wire has actually broken and is pretty much fried through the dash. I don't mind running a new wire to fix. I just don't know where it goes or what it powers.


Last pic is looking down through where the dash pad is

Anyone recognize what shorted?

Looks like the twilight harness fried up

I believe that did happen. I pulled that harness out (goes to a white box in the lower right kick panel area). Multiple wires are fried. The interesting part is the lights always worked fine, as did the twilight switches.



Most of those wires are fried, but fixable if I can get the pins out of the connector. The question is what f'ed up? That isn't exactly an area where they would be bouncing around rubbing against each other. Even all the way across the dashboard.

Looking at the wiring diagram, it does appear yellow wire going through the headlamp stuff also somehow goes to the radio. Maybe this is for the dimmer.

There is another fried black/ground wire that appears to head up to the connections to the cluster. Still trying to see what goes up there.

There is a black/white wire that eventually goes to G203 in the lower right kick panel that shares a ground with the instrument cluster, radio, and twilight wiring. I'm also looking at a wiring diagram for a '96 impala, so it may not be 100% right.

First thing I noticed when things went awry was the cluster pooping out, which if the twilight system shorted the ground wire (black/white) I suppose that could have cause the meltdown.....still not sure.