More diesel weirdness- 04

From : sodakid2

Q: just wondering if this could be caused by the hi-idle feature kicking in and rpms getting high enough to actuate the auto door locks doubtful... the auto locks engage based on speed not rpm. 15mph is the activation speed. for the heck of it try disabling the auto door locks and see if it continues to happen. id suspect a shorted wire somewhere... check the wire bundles between the door and door jamb - make sure none look crushed or otherwise damaged. a bad switch could also be a possibility. try fiddling with each door lock switch carefully - see if one seems to activate the door locks before its fully depressed. .

Replies:

From : pj

i 95 3500 van 318 stopped blowing fuses and starting melting wires yesterday. so i followed the melting toi a little rubber box that mounts with three terminals to the top of the alternator... have no idea what it is. two little wires that are the right color to be fuel injection related green with orange i think that connect to two small terminals on the aternator and one large ground wire that attaches to the alternator frame and then to the engine block. the black box is a molded wire terminal for the field wires there is another lower down for the main power wire. one of the field wires orange is keyed battery voltage and the other green is a variable ground controlled by the pcm. the orange wire gets its power from a fuse #4 in the power distribution center if the orange wire is the one burned there is probably a short in the alternator. it is a green wire with an orange tracer the is fried; i dont remember the color of the other wire. it is spliced together with other 4 or 5 other wires that are also green w/orange and it appears that each of those routes to a fuel injector.... yes when the automatic shutdown relay closes it powers the alternator field and the injectors but if the wire is fried all the way to the alternator id suspect the short is there. .

From : diesel guy

ld wrote one more thing on the tires. if your speedo drive isnt calibrated for a larger tire then you are going farther and faster than the speedo/odometer indicate. this difference could easily be 10% or more going from say a 29 dia to a 33 dia tire 91 cir. vs 103.6 cir.. you can check out the difference in speedometer readings here. http//www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html jerry .

From : tom lawrence

i just picked up a new company provided caravan and cannot figure out how to unlock the side doors from the outside. there are no keyholes that i can find. anyone familiar with this tia -- bill chesapeake va if its got electric locks then you can unlock all the locks by unlocking one of the doors and holding the key for an extra second or two. tom heintz mopar maniac .