Couple of electrical based questions

[sky56]

Hey everyone. I've got a new battery under the hood (can't remember the cold crank amps and such) anyways I recently upped my idle as I felt that once it was warmed up it felt low like a drag car that sounds like it's just ready to be romped on (no tach) and it seemed to make the dash lights dim. Granted I understand how electrical current works and all that and I know it gets brighter when you drive it as more current is flowing. Even in park it seems good. After upping the idle a bit it got much better while in drive at a stop light. Is there something I'm missing or did I fix it? Also I'm sure its a loose wire but I have a jvc cd player in and it's all hooked up right but I feel after hitting bumps or being at a stop light it keeps cutting out and turning back on. This is while my iPod is hooked up. Any thoughts would be super helpful. Thanks everyone. Take care

 

[K5Cobb]

As far as the cd player goes, check the ground, and check the voltage. With a bad ground or not enough voltage, it could make it cycle like that. On your truck, what year is it, and have you had your alternator checked? You should not see a real big difference between idle and having the eng tached up unless you are drawing more amps than your alternator is putting out at idle (ie big lights, big sub system... ect) . You might wanna check your voltage at idle, tached up a lil bit, and with the eng off at the battery with a volt meter. It kinda sounds like a weak alternator, maybe this will help ya

 

[boz42]

Check all your ground cables.

 

[Mountain_man]

Check the power wire from firewall to fusebox. I'd guess there is a bad section that's grounding out. Had this very problem with my 81 pu.

 

[Snowy Rivers]

All the wiring harness grounds that are under the dash are located inside the dash area on the A pillar.

To get to this you must remove the dash cluster.

THe ground BUSS BAR is a multi prong device that is fastened to the sheetmetal body with a single heavy sheetmetal screw, The buss bar has several prongs on it and all the grounds just plug onto these.

Now over time, the prongs and the connectors in the ground wires corrode causing a poor connection.

Remove all the wires, clean the entire unit well to remove all the corossion. Replace any connectors that are corroded too.

Reinstall using a little dielectric grease on the conncetions.

Be sure that the Bussbar is clean as well as the body area where it grounds.

This one issue can cause all sorts of issues with dash lights, gauge functions etc.

All the inside/underdash stuff grounds through this setup.

Battery grounds are always a suspect too.

Tha main power feed to the power center too.

Good luck

Snowy