No heat, turn signals, windows, srs, fuel gauge, odometer, door locks, etc.

MattStacheRyde

New member
That’s not even the whole list. All from one wire behind the radio being misplaced? I’m not quite sure what’s happening exactly. I removed my old stereo to install a new one and came across this wire which seems to make the entire vehicle act crazy. Also, no matter what I do, I don’t have heat anymore.

It’s a 2008 dodge 170” cargo. Anybody have this issue before and know the remedy?

If I safe this wire off, intermittently it seems to think it’s either grounded or getting power because it’s acting up when I start the vehicle. A few minutes later it may go away it may not. Sometimes I might have to pull the stereo out and ground that wire out over and over again till it recognizes something and goes back to just no heat or tpms.
 

72chevy4x4

Well-known member
First step would be to remove the stereo and determine if everything returns to normal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
The official MB wiring diagram for the 2007 (exactly like the 2008) is here: http://www.diysprinter.co.uk/reference/2007-sprinter-wiring-information.pdf
a 3rd party version of it is here: http://diysprinter.co.uk/reference/07_Wiring-sprinter-2500.pdf

The 2007 service manual is here: http://www.diysprinter.co.uk/reference/2007-sprinter-service-information.pdf

What *color(s)* is the wire you're playing with? (and roughly how thick? 18 gauge?)

It could be a communication wire, which would explain why having it "float" isn't a great idea.... but that also means that simply grounding it might cause additional problems.

I agree with 72chevy's comment: it could be some OTHER wire in the stereo harness that's fighting you, or you could have simply damaged a completely separate wire by the stereo's box pinching it (you wouldn't be the first on that score).
Pulling the stereo would be a quick thing to do as a test...

--dick
 
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MattStacheRyde

New member
I pulled the stereo but, without the stock radio to plug back in I haven’t seen any changes. I disconnected all of the heater and dash buttons and inspected the wiring and didn’t see anything out of place or damaged. So far nothing has changed. When this wire shorts out (even tho it’s safed off?) it happens completely randomly. Like this mornings Mf when I started the van after it’s been sitting all night. After a minute or so, it goes back to normal (normal being no heat, no tpms, and possibly some other stuff I have no clue about)

The wire coming out of the van to the harness is solid brown and looks about 18 gauge.
 

ptheland

2013 144" low top Passgr
The wire coming out of the van to the harness is solid brown and looks about 18 gauge.
We got lucky here.

Solid brown is usually a ground wire. Bad grounds can cause all sorts of wacky problems.

Now the trick is determining which end of a ground wire you're looking at. Is it the end that should be attached to a grounding point somewhere? Or is it the end that should be attached to some item in the van.

Does it have a ring connector on the end of it? Is it a bare wire with no connector? Is there something else on the end of it?
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
I agree with Peter ... brown is (almost 99%) always a ground wire. So you're safe to tie the "loose end" to the frame.
MB (again, almost) always ties the brown wires to the frame with a ring terminal on a stud under a nut. Frequently multiple wires end at one stud.
In the MB wiring diagrams, in section 8W-91, they have locator maps (and sometime drawings of the ring terminals) for where the ground points are.

If, on the other hand, the "loose end" is merely a cut-off piece of wire, or a single metal "pin" crimped on to the wire's exposed conductor, you've got something that was pulled (or fell) out of a connector body (the plastic thing that gathers many wires to create a "connector".).
In that case you've got a (possibly) long and tedious search ahead of you to figure out what connector now has an empty hole that is the real "home" for that pin. The wire length may serve as a partial clue.

If it's a "bare" wire (no terminal pin attached), it may simply be a wire that used to be in a (if you're lucky) grounded ring terminal, in which case attaching it to the frame may actually fully cure your symptoms ... you'd be restoring the ground connection to whatever device "lost it".

Given the MB's use of a CANbus as the means of the various subsystems to talk to each other, a "floating ground" can cause that subsystem to "float" in ways that send (or grab) miscellaneous "messages" to the other units. Thus the radio can affect the air conditioner can affect the instrument panel and the interior lighting.

Section 8W-15 of the wiring diagrams is the "ground distribution" network ... in one section it lists the pin ("cavity") numbers of (all?) the connectors that "talk" to ground, and the ground point (the Gxxx numbers) that the locator map refers to. It's possible one of those Gxxx lost its retaining nut, and you're actually fighting *many* hidden loose wires.

Section 8W-80 is the list of pins in each connector, frequently (but not always) accompanied by a diagram of the connector's appearance.

I'd start by verifying that the radio connector has all of its ground wires. (a number of units have more than one ground pin).

good luck
--dick
 

Düsseldorfer

New member
I agree with esteemed posters Peter and Dick. Can I ask, what do you mean when you say the wire is "safed off"? I don't think I've heard that term, sorry if that's my ignorance. Was it connected somewhere and you cut it?
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
I translated "safed off" to mean insulating tape was wrapped around it to prevent it touching anything else.

From the past tense of "safe" (i know any noun can be verbed, but apparently that also applies to adjectives?)

--dick
 

ptheland

2013 144" low top Passgr
If this does have a ring terminal on the end of it, indicating that it should be attached to a ground point, it makes me wonder if there are other wires running loose back there that came off the same ground point. If that's the case, I'd try to figure out what ground point it should be attached to, then see if all of the other ground wires are there as well. A flashlight and a mirror are going to be useful in this kind of hunt.
 

Düsseldorfer

New member
If this does have a ring terminal on the end of it, indicating that it should be attached to a ground point, it makes me wonder if there are other wires running loose back there that came off the same ground point.
That's kind of where I was going, i.e. how did that brown wire lose its integrity before being "safed." Perhaps it is safed beyond all recognition at this point.
 

MattStacheRyde

New member
Ok, to clarify some things, the wire is entering the factory harness (square plastic thing adapter harness for aftermarket stereo plugs into) and it is brown. Coming out of the harness it’s yellow (I know, wire doesn’t care what color it is but, it’s yellow)

That wire has nowhere to connect to. If I connect it to anything I come across all of these issues. I have not tried to ground it to the body, but to me that doesn’t make any sense because, it’s coming from the body to the stereo. (Ends in plastic stereo harness and exits other harness bare.l)

There was a stereo installed previously and everything worked fine. I pulled out the old stereo, cut the old wire harness off the adapter harness (the one with the yellow wire) and wired everything back as it was besides being a new stereo.

After completing I had no heat(as in the controls seem to not work but the ac off/rest button works) and no tpms (dash says no tpms and light flashes constantly)

None of the wires in the back changed. Even the stupid yellow one was just safed off from before. It wasn’t until I started tinkering to fix the heat issue that I came across it.
 

MattStacheRyde

New member
Upon further inspection (just now) I seem to have another two wires that go to nowhere. A black and yellow, and a brown and red. They are all coming from the van harness and seemingly have nowhere on the stereo to attach to. The brown and red wire just ends at the harness and doesn’t come out of the adapter harness. Wtf?
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
Photo?

If the wires just *end* (cut off), then i fear you're following the footsteps of a previous butcher (that's a technical term :whistle:).
Not meaning that *you* are a butcher, just that the trail has been blazed with a chainsaw.

If wires "just end" inside a harness, they're probably spliced to other wires (usually of the same color (but not always)).
In the service manual's wiring diagrams, such splices are identified with an "S" number, such as S234.
Their locations are also shown in the locator diagrams in section 8W-91.

I'll do a little color-digging in a while...

--dick
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
Upon further inspection (just now) I seem to have another two wires that go to nowhere. A black and yellow, and a brown and red. They are all coming from the van harness and seemingly have nowhere on the stereo to attach to. The brown and red wire just ends at the harness and doesn’t come out of the adapter harness. Wtf?
If you use Acrobat to search section 8W of the wiring diagrams in the service manual, there are about 16 hits in the "connector pinout" section for Black/Yellow ( BK/YL) ... and the three most likely are either the ATC (air conditioner) plug (it's the K-line diagnostic wire that connects to the IC/ATC/HBM/CHM), the CTEL (cell phone) connector (to the left front speaker), or the wires to the Water-in-Fuel sensor.
The SKREEM also has a BK/YL feed, but if the Sprinter is starting, that's probably not this wire.

Quaintly enough, the WIF sensor also uses a Brown/Red wire.
The WIF uses the BR/RD as +12v, and BK/YL as the signal return.
The WIF seems to be directly wired to the ECM, so i can't see why it would pass by the radio area.

The ATC connector also has a BR/RD, for the refrigerant pressure sensor.

There are a number of spots where the BK/YL carries the "fused ignition run/start" ... powered when the key is on or cranking.

BR/RD shows up on the radio connector (pin B3) going to the right front speaker (but there are no BK/YL on that connector)

It's still a puzzle.
--dick
 
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MattStacheRyde

New member
Ok, after learning to ski in a day this weekend I believe I can accomplish anything. That was until I tried to figure out this wiring issue and now I’m completely lost. Also, I’ve taken pictures but don’t know where to post them to then link them on here (why can’t I just put a damn photo?!)

Anyway, I noticed that you’re in seattle, dick, so, what’s your time worth because I am too?
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
The "how to post photos" are here:
https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=467
https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64377

(i.e. "how to put a damn photo" ... and the only secret is that it was to be 900 pixels (or fewer) wide, and less than 500 kbytes as a file size)
((which may require changing from .png to .jpeg (.jpg)))

You can also email a few photos (reminding me of the thread number or title) and i'll post them (after the conversion). rseymour (at) wolfenet.com

We'll handle the "time worth" via private messages, since my Sprinter involvement is a hobby, not a revenue source.

--dick
 

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