I replaced my transmission and after hooking everything back up, I turn the key and nothing, but all the dash warning lights came on. with my son in the cab, I jumped the starter solinoid and it started, so im thinking a bad starter. My son hit the brake out of habit, to turn the engine off and there was a thud noise from the rear brakes (all four wheels are off the ground), and the truck turned off with out turning the key.

Turned the key off, then back on and there was no dash lights (all the little warning lights that come on just before you start), and even jumping the starter, the truck will only turn over, not start.

Now, with the key on, no dash warning lights, no turning signals, no radio, no climate controls, no turning signals. But headlights, power seats, overhead lights, all working. Seems everything in the column, dash and center consol do not work.

Any idea? I've checked all the fuses and relays pretaining to them and all are fine. I understand the starter silinoid might be bad, cause it started after I jumped it the first time. But it seems something else might be wrong too.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Did you put a meter on the starter cable at starter end to verify 12V? Verify you didn't break or burn of the main ground from the battery or any body/frame ground straps. Define "jumpered starter" You ran a jumper cable from + post to heavy lug on starter or just jumpers the solenoid?

 

I jumped the strarter by using a screw driver and jumping posts on starter. I did check the volatge and was getting the 12+ . I replaced my Interlock solenoid this morning and still nothing. I can't even shift out of park with the key on and foot on brake. I also replaced the starter and that didn't help.

 

Less guessing, more thinking and diagnosing!

Unlikely.
If the starter were bad, it would never have cranked the engine.
Do not turn the key to ON, turn it to the intermediate position between LOCK and ON to telase the shift lever. Once you turn the switch to ON, the brake pedal position switch circuit must be completely functional (it isn't).
Of course not, it was never bad.


Greg is probably on the right track with his suggestions. Your initial symptom suggests a faulty ground circuit. When the boy hit the brake pedal, something in either the grounding or in one of the supply circuits opened up completely due to current flow where it didn't belong and now everything is dead.

Now you have TWO problems: The original one plus the new one.

Start by tracing the ground wires coming off the negative battery terminal. You should have one that goes directly to the firewall, a second that goes to one of the starter mounting bolts with a jumper that goes back up to the front of the engine compartment. Since you R&R'd the transmission, you had to disconnect the grounds and the negative battery terminal. Use standard voltage drop testing (Google it) with a meter to determine the integrity of each segment of the ground circuit when there should be a draw present.

 

I did a drop voltage test and the ground from the battery to the starter then back to the front of the frame. all was good. Fluxed between .001mv and 0.

I did find out that my ignition feed fuse (102) was blown. I replaced and got all the warning lights and dings when the accessory position is reached. At first I thought problem solved, but then when I turned the ignition to start, the fuse blew again, and again. So I built a 20a breaker to use instead of blowing $5 fuses to diagnose the problem.

I pulled the DTR connector and tried the ignition and the fuse 102 blew again. Pulled my starter relay and the fuse blew again. I bought a new ignition swith and fuse still blows.

I'm going to continue with my ground voltage drop testing tomorrow. I don't have a diagram of where all the ground wires are, but I'll give it a shot.

 

Since you have the tranny out, certainly make sure nothing got jammed or pinched there and maybe pull the harness from the tranny to see if your short is associated with it..

 

Now we have a very specific symptom that helps it to make sense. Skip the voltage drop testing, at least for now.

You can troubleshoot this with your ohmmeter, no fuse or circuit breaker is required.

You have a short circuit to ground in the starter circuit between the CJB and the DTR switch.

Connect your meter between CJB fuse F7 (one side of it is connected to the START circuit) and ground. Verify that the meter reads reads zero (or nearly so) to confirm the short exists.

1. Go to the DTR switch on the transmission and find the dark blue/orange wire. That's the wire shorted to ground.

2. Perform a visual exam of the harness just as Greg M suggested above, looking for that wire shorted to metal, would be obvious if you pinched the harness.

3. Follow that harness back "upstream". Somewhere along the line up on the engine there's a 12 pin inline connector that you can unplug to segregate the two halves of the wiring circuit. Unplug it and see if the short goes away or not.

 

Tested the ohms on F7 "radio (start signal") to ground. hoovered around 70.5, unplugged the 12pt connection anyway and still hoovered around 70.5.

With the 12pt connection disconnected, turned the ignition to start, it did not blow the fuse. So I'm sure it is in that harness somewhere.

 

70 ohms shouldn't have blown a fuse anyway. The short was absent when you took your reading, for whatever reason. Dis you also have the the DTR switch's connector unplugged or not?

Did you do the visual exam of the harness as prescribed?

 

I did do a visual inspection.



I reattached everything and started over to make sure I got the correct steps, plus I used a newer ohlms meter. The one I had would not test to 0 when connecting the leads.

So I unplugged the harness from the DTR. got a reading of 3.0 from testsing fuse 7 to ground. Unplugged the 12pt harness in the engine compartment and still got a 3.0 reading.

Something I noticed while following the harness from DTR to engine compartment is this part of the harness behind the engine while it goes over from left side to the right side.

 

Forgot to mention that the fuse 102 does not blow when I unplug the harness from the DTR and turn ignition to start.

I noticed while looking into the fuse box a connector that had the dark blue/orange stripe, so I plugged the harness back into the DTR and unplugged the harnedd from the fuse box and the fuse102 did not blow when trying to start.

 

This appears to be "normal" aged plastic conduit. (assuming its not rubbing wires onto metal)

Can you Ohm the DTR. I'd need to pull a diagram to see what is connected to what internally in the DTR. It sounds like you might be on the right track so far.


Unplugging the fuse box probably isnt helping anything.......

 

might be worth wedging your hand across the top of the transmission to make sure that harness that runs side to side didn't drop down between the engine and the bell house and got pinched accidentally.

Or lay across the top of the engine and drop both arms around the top back of the engine and gently pull up on that harness and feel that its not pinched and "stuck" in the down position.

Even if you can't truly see it with your eyes, you might be able to verify if its properly located or not.

 

Going over what ProjeftSHO89 said. facing the fuse box, I put me ohms lead on the left side feed of Fuse 07 (radio-start signal) and touched to ground and read 3.0. I inspected the harness at the DTR and all looked good. I unplugged the 12pt connector in engine compartment and still read 3.0.

The ohms actually goes to 0 at first, then moves up to 3.0.

I pulled the DB/OG pin connector from the harness on the DTR and plugged the harness back in without the DB/OG wire and still blew the fuse.

 

That should eliminate EVERYTHING downstream from that connector, including the DTR switch and its wiring. However...

Okay, that opens up a possibility I didn't cover, that is, making resistance measurements in circuit in which there is potentially unaccounted-for power (which will either skew resistance measurements or damage the meter's circuitry).

Do the following: One the meter, turn off auto-ranging, if present and on Set meter to read the lowest range possible. Short the probes together and carefully observe the display's readings so you become familiar with what is normal for a short circuit. This is called 'zeroing the meter'.

Now, remove fuse F7 to eliminate the possibility of stray voltage getting fed back from the radio. Remove fuse F102.

You must now determine whine terminal of each fuse is the "supply" and which is the "load". This is NOT discernible from the service documentation, you will need to do this manually.

For Fuse F102, one terminal is always hot (12V), the other is connected to the ignition switch. Determine which is which.

For F7, it's a bit tougher. One side is connected to the radio, the other is connected to the DTR switch via C110 on the DG/OG wire. The "supply" side will be the terminal that has continuity to that wire and back to the ignition switch then the "load" side of F102.

With both fuses removed, the ignition switch to OFF, and the 12-pin connector disconnected, and the DTR switch connected, make the following resistance readings. Desired reading is indicated.

A: F102 Load to ground - open.
B: F7 Supply to ground - open.

C: If both pass, then reconnect the 12-pi connector, and repeat the second test.

D: If it now fails, disconnect the DTR switch and repeat measurement. If it now passes, the DTR switch has an internal short to ground.

Let us know if anything requires clarification. Go through those steps EXACTLY in that order and let us know the results of each specific test. I've tagged each with a letter to make it easier to identify which test is which.

Post your results. I suspect it will be test B that fails based on your prior readings, but there were ambiguities that need to be removed to know for sure.