bill Posted June 27, 2013 Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 I am in the process of putting an 86 turbo back together. I got the car four years ago from someone on this forum. It needed an engine, so I put the engine from an 87 that I used to have. I have a couple of problems. The first is that I seem to have lost some wires. They are the ones that connect to the ground stud on the head right near the distributor. I don't have the donor 87 anymore. I have the harness from that car, and it has wires for some sensors. It also has three ground wires attached to two terminals- one black with two wires and one gray terminal with one wire. I am wondering where those ground wires go. I did run another ground wire from the battery to that terminal on the head because the distributor was doing some funny stuff. I also grounded the distributor with another wire. The other question I have is that I do not have any power in the fusebox for the fuses 12A, 12B and 13. 12A feeds courtesy mirror light, lighting rheostat, dashboard and instrument panel illumination, front park and side marker lights, park lights indicator, license plate illumination and rear side marker lights. 12B right rear park light. 13 left rear park light. I tried putting 12 volts to the fuse holder at 12A and it did not make any difference. I cleaned up the grounds. Any thoughts on how I could lose power to three fuses? Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted July 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2013 I fixed it! On a hunch, I swapped out the light switch. I put the one from my 83 STI in. Over the years, I recall going through several Series ii switches. I think the ones from Series I are better built. i remember Brian Holm saying the same thing. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrethx Posted July 3, 2013 Report Share Posted July 3, 2013 bill -- when you say "light switch," you're talking about the turn signal stalk that also contains the light switch, correct? my series 2 turn signal switch broke in half, so i got a new one but my old one worked okay before (aside from part of it hanging off). isn't the series 1 stalk a little bit chunkier than the series 2? i remember rabin saying once that you could also use the stalks from a 405 on the 505, that would be another option... did you get the engine wiring problem resolved? i don't have a circuit diagram from the 87 turbo, or else i would have responded to your earlier post... andré Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted July 3, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 3, 2013 Yeah, the one with the chunky stalk works great. The illumination lights on the instrument panel were not working, now they do. As far as I know at this point, I have the electrical issues worked out. I will see in the next few days. I remember taking a headlight switch apart a long time ago. There is a lot of little pieces in there, as it does a lot of functions. As I recall, there was no putting it back together once the levers and springs fell apart. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted July 3, 2013 Report Share Posted July 3, 2013 Thanks for posting the fix Bill! I never would have guessed light switch, but it makes sense now that I think about it. Also glad all your wiring issues are sorted out - it's been crazy busy at home the last few weeks and it affected how active I was on the forums. Now that PPIHC is done with, and my 89' is in the body shop I can try to get stuff sorted out, and I can start being more active on the forums again. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted July 4, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2013 I still can't believe that I found the problem. I kept poring over the electrical manual and coming up empty. I did have a few clues. The dash illumination was not working, and the indicator for the headlights on would sometimes work. The parking lights indicator was working though. I drove it around a nearby parking lot here yesterday (no plates yet) and things seemed fine. Before I got the car, there were some parts missing. I never drove it. I thought for sure that the problem had to be under the hood. Then, when checking for power to those fuses, I realized that the power goes to the headlight switch with the key off on some things, but not others. I am guessing the switch went bad from just sitting for 18 years (?). I still have no clue what the ground wires from the head go, but my donor car had abs, and this one does not. I guess it may not matter. I will be getting plates on Friday. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bean Posted July 4, 2013 Report Share Posted July 4, 2013 Very nice diagnosis, and I bet its a hell of a feeling getting it fixed. Congrats! As for the grounds, nearest place they can be bolted to the head or block is fine - they just need any good ground. Rabin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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