No instruments
February 11th, 2019, 2:57 PM
#1
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No instruments
I'm new to this forum, actually I haven't ever been a member of any forum that I can recall.
But I do use this forum from time to time when I get stumped on a problem with one of my trucks.
So that's why I am here now. This weekend I was on I cool trip to Nashville and stayed at a hotel that required valet parking, it was a nice convenience since the weather was cold and wet and I'm a bit of a wus when it comes to the cold ( FLA boy).
when I was leaving my last day there I gave my ticket to get my 2004 suburban and the guy comes back and says it's dead, won't start. I immediately know what's wrong. My suburban is older, it's pushing 300k and has a quirk or two. One of them being if the shift lever isn't in just the right place you can remove the key without actually turning off power completely. I know about it and it's habit for me to shift it all the way and look for the red batt light before I get out. But I completely forgot about it when I handed the keys over.
so here I am with a dead battery. No big deal I keep cables with me and the valet also has a suburban so he brings it over and jump mine off. It fires right up, I pull around and load my bags and head down the road.
then I realize I have nothing on the dash. No lights, no tach, speedo, oil, volts gas not even the radio
I pull into a gas station to check it out and fill the tank. Nothing obvious going on. When I start back up I now have the tach and speedo with is great but now I have the battery light, ABS light and airbag light.
I carry my scanner with me so plugged it in to see if I was actually making power or not. I fairly certain I was since I had made it that far after having a dead battery 15 minutes before and it started right up after turning it off to pump gas.
the scanner won't link, I tried several times but no luck.
I'm an aircraft mech by trade so I usually have tools with me and today thankfully I had my meter with me and was able to check that my alternator was putting out.
I did I a search on Google to see if anyone had had this before and I did find a thread that said to pull the IND 10a fuse under the hood for 10 minutes but that didn't do anything. All the other threads talked about bad solder joints and BCM failure.
I weighed my options and took the chance to drive it the 4 hours to home. What could go wrong.
it was a nervous butt puckered ride the entire way.
luckily I made it with no problems. During the 4 hours I had plenty of time to think about what it could be and in the end the best I could come up with is that I confused the computer that controls all the things I was having issue with. This happens in planes all the time when people power them on or off in the wrong sequence. So I decided to try to fix this truck the same way.
I disconnected the battery for an hour and had a beer.
reconnected the battery and everything came back.
I was so relieved. After reading many more forum threads I was dreading the work and cost I was possibly looking at to ge this old but loved suburban going again.
so in summary if you lose you indication after a dead battery charge the battery and let it sit for a while disconnected. It might just work
But I do use this forum from time to time when I get stumped on a problem with one of my trucks.
So that's why I am here now. This weekend I was on I cool trip to Nashville and stayed at a hotel that required valet parking, it was a nice convenience since the weather was cold and wet and I'm a bit of a wus when it comes to the cold ( FLA boy).
when I was leaving my last day there I gave my ticket to get my 2004 suburban and the guy comes back and says it's dead, won't start. I immediately know what's wrong. My suburban is older, it's pushing 300k and has a quirk or two. One of them being if the shift lever isn't in just the right place you can remove the key without actually turning off power completely. I know about it and it's habit for me to shift it all the way and look for the red batt light before I get out. But I completely forgot about it when I handed the keys over.
so here I am with a dead battery. No big deal I keep cables with me and the valet also has a suburban so he brings it over and jump mine off. It fires right up, I pull around and load my bags and head down the road.
then I realize I have nothing on the dash. No lights, no tach, speedo, oil, volts gas not even the radio
I pull into a gas station to check it out and fill the tank. Nothing obvious going on. When I start back up I now have the tach and speedo with is great but now I have the battery light, ABS light and airbag light.
I carry my scanner with me so plugged it in to see if I was actually making power or not. I fairly certain I was since I had made it that far after having a dead battery 15 minutes before and it started right up after turning it off to pump gas.
the scanner won't link, I tried several times but no luck.
I'm an aircraft mech by trade so I usually have tools with me and today thankfully I had my meter with me and was able to check that my alternator was putting out.
I did I a search on Google to see if anyone had had this before and I did find a thread that said to pull the IND 10a fuse under the hood for 10 minutes but that didn't do anything. All the other threads talked about bad solder joints and BCM failure.
I weighed my options and took the chance to drive it the 4 hours to home. What could go wrong.
it was a nervous butt puckered ride the entire way.
luckily I made it with no problems. During the 4 hours I had plenty of time to think about what it could be and in the end the best I could come up with is that I confused the computer that controls all the things I was having issue with. This happens in planes all the time when people power them on or off in the wrong sequence. So I decided to try to fix this truck the same way.
I disconnected the battery for an hour and had a beer.
reconnected the battery and everything came back.
I was so relieved. After reading many more forum threads I was dreading the work and cost I was possibly looking at to ge this old but loved suburban going again.
so in summary if you lose you indication after a dead battery charge the battery and let it sit for a while disconnected. It might just work
March 5th, 2019, 11:01 AM
#2
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I had a situation this morning where my '03 Yukon started right up but all the dash instruments were dead. Tach, speedo, trans temp, fuel gauge, coolant temp, oil pressure and voltmeter all resting on the pegs. It seemed to be running ok so I went about my business. After the first stop when I restarted everything came back. I came to this forum to try and determine what happened and what the chances are it will happen again.
Your post has me wondering if it's simply a case of my battery getting old and weak. It's the same battery that was in it when I bought it over 4 years ago, so it's at least that old.
Your post has me wondering if it's simply a case of my battery getting old and weak. It's the same battery that was in it when I bought it over 4 years ago, so it's at least that old.
