Goose
Well-known Member
For my daily driver, I've been driving a '99 Olds 88 our daughter hit a deer with a year ago July.
Lately, the car has been intermittently doing some strange things, I mean bigtime strange. Like if you hit the left turn signal, it sounds like a telephone ringing unger the dash, timed to the flashes of the turn signal. Then, sometimes when you hit the left turn signal for a lane change, the cruise will disengage. Sometimes the alarm chimes will go off at random, and hitting the right turn signal will turn the chimes off. It all would happen for a half day, and then be OK for a week. Then start up again.
When I came home last night, the left low beam was only about half as bright as it should be. Everything pointed to the left front.
I recalled that when I fixed the car from the deer hit, a wiring harness leading to the left headlights looked like it had been pinched, but I examined the wires and found no damage at the time. But, I got to thinking about it again relative to the recent strange goings on and decided to check the wires again.
So, I sidetracked my other shop work for the day and ran the Olds in. Unfortunately, getting at that area of the wiring harness requires the headlights and header panel be removed. So I tore into it, pulled the header panel, took the wiring harnesses apart and couldn't find any damage to the wires. But with the headlights on, if I shook one harness I could get the left headlight and parking light to flicker. Did some more checking, and Ta-Dah (drum rolls) found a loose nut on a ground lug inside the left fender behind the ABS unit.
Tightened the ground lug, lights came on to their intended brilliance, and presumabley everything else works like it should again. Wouldn't have needed to pull the header panel to get at the ground lug.
But, truth be told, I was never satisfied with the color match I'd done on the header panel and hood when I fixed the deer hit. Probably no one else would ever notice the mismatch, but I was aware of it and it bugged me. So, while I had the header panel off anyway, I prepped it and reshot it, adjusting the color in the process. Tomorrow morning, I'll put it back together and go back to what I should have done today. Sometime, I'll take a couple of hours to redo the hood.
Just one of those non-typical days.
Lately, the car has been intermittently doing some strange things, I mean bigtime strange. Like if you hit the left turn signal, it sounds like a telephone ringing unger the dash, timed to the flashes of the turn signal. Then, sometimes when you hit the left turn signal for a lane change, the cruise will disengage. Sometimes the alarm chimes will go off at random, and hitting the right turn signal will turn the chimes off. It all would happen for a half day, and then be OK for a week. Then start up again.
When I came home last night, the left low beam was only about half as bright as it should be. Everything pointed to the left front.
I recalled that when I fixed the car from the deer hit, a wiring harness leading to the left headlights looked like it had been pinched, but I examined the wires and found no damage at the time. But, I got to thinking about it again relative to the recent strange goings on and decided to check the wires again.
So, I sidetracked my other shop work for the day and ran the Olds in. Unfortunately, getting at that area of the wiring harness requires the headlights and header panel be removed. So I tore into it, pulled the header panel, took the wiring harnesses apart and couldn't find any damage to the wires. But with the headlights on, if I shook one harness I could get the left headlight and parking light to flicker. Did some more checking, and Ta-Dah (drum rolls) found a loose nut on a ground lug inside the left fender behind the ABS unit.
Tightened the ground lug, lights came on to their intended brilliance, and presumabley everything else works like it should again. Wouldn't have needed to pull the header panel to get at the ground lug.
But, truth be told, I was never satisfied with the color match I'd done on the header panel and hood when I fixed the deer hit. Probably no one else would ever notice the mismatch, but I was aware of it and it bugged me. So, while I had the header panel off anyway, I prepped it and reshot it, adjusting the color in the process. Tomorrow morning, I'll put it back together and go back to what I should have done today. Sometime, I'll take a couple of hours to redo the hood.
Just one of those non-typical days.