Tearing my hair out problem with 1997 Sierra SLE k1500

[Chevy529]

'Kay here's the story. Almost 2 years ago I had a dealer install a new fuel pump for me. Ever since then it ran fine ... around town. But 50-60 minutes of driving on the highway and the truck would die like I turned it off. No warning. By the time I got it off the road and stopped it would usually fire right back up again.

So I booked it back in with them. They couldn't replicate the problem and charged me $175 for that opinion. So I just put it off till I had time to deal with it. 3 months later it wouldn't start after a shutoff so I had it towed to the same dealer. They said it needed a new ignition switch.

I put one in and away we went for awhile. But now it has developed some other problems it didn't have before. When I put it in gear it blows the signal light fuse. Sometimes. The windshield wiper will occasionally stop or not park correctly. But not always. It may go a week or two without any thing happening. Then like today it blew 4 fuses in a row and then ... stopped. The indicator light for the gears doesn't always work but most of the time it does. The 4 wheel drive switch sometimes wont engage on first push and the light "may" stay on.
I have figured out that the fuel relay is getting hot but not why.
Do these seemingly disparate things share a common ground?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sewlow]

Check all the grounds. These trucks do funky weird things when the grounds go south.
Probably be a good idea to replace them all. If the cable cores have some green corrosion at the ends, well then chances are that that corrosion runs the length of the cable.
Even if they don't have a lot of corrosion, if the truck has the original cables, they are at least 18 years old. (You didn't mention what year your truck is.)
Here's a solution.
http://www.gmt400.com/threads/big-3-kits-96-98-v8-trucks.33765/#post-893237
The price that chrmaka's asking is for the kits are pretty reasonable, too.
This is just a suggestion. It may or may not fix the probs that you're truck's suffering from.
Either way. It won't hurt & you'll at least have some piece of mind that the cables are not the source.
From experience, I'd say that it'd probably help!

 

[RichLo]

wow, when I was reading all of that, all I could think of is there's a demonized-devil mouse living in your dash.

 

[Chevy529]

Thanks and yes, today I am going to go through as many grounds as I can find now I have time.

Funny you should mention a mouse as, I had one make a home in my truck so I am going to look for chewed wires etc. as well.

This was a second vehicle or I would have done all this much sooner. Now it's a priority.

Thanks for replying

 

[Justin S]

I've had 2 trucks that have had issues with the ground on the fender right by the battery coming off of the negative cable. That one is needed for tons of things.

 

[someotherguy]

The wiper issue is usually its own problem, the ground on the circuit board is going bad at the connector. Very simple fix to resolder the points where the socket attaches to the circuit board.

The fuel pump relay getting hot is pretty normal. It should be fairly warm under normal operation, but the Vortec-era trucks are kind of problematic with burning up that relay and its socket. Once the pins in the socket are cooked, you can put new relays in it for the rest of the truck's life and it will burn them up due to bad connection.

Richard

 

[Chevy529]

Thanks for the replies. I ordered a new fuse base, when it comes I'll redo the connections. $23 as opposed to the $200 the wrecker wanted. Never blown a Maxi Fuse so no point paying for extras. The relay I just swap out every 45 minutes till I can track the problem down. It may b the solder joints on the board but it seems weird to have a bunch of problems appear at the same time. Bad grounds cause goofy things to happen. I noticed a slight green tinge on the ground strap to fender. Will clean that one up today. Thanks.

 

[meterman]

Mine did that with relay , loose connection soldered wire to relay problem solved, the power for fuel pump draws power thu the sender that caused the melted relay in first place after fried ecm


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Chevy529]

Your reply confused me. U soldered a wire to the relay? Looked at the link provided by Richard and was a lil surprised. Those kits would be good if you were doing competition stereo but perhaps 1/0 guage is a bit overkill. You don't find that on highway trucks or heavy machinery. 2/0 is normal in those places. At some point too large of wire puts resistance into the equation. My .02

 

[Chevy529]

Well, I'm still learning how this forum works. Apparently. Oops