Something weird happened today to my car.............. well my wife said that it has happend to her before while i was gone and i dont know what could be causing this.
Over the last few days i have installed a new coil ignition pack, new spark plug wires, new spark plugs, new EGR Valve, new EGR Pressure Sensor and new EGR Vacuum, also with this i have had an oil change with a brake and pwer steering flush. I was out driving and had the A/C on full blast, the car was doing fine......... i was out for about 2 hours and an hour into the trip i noticed that the A/C had quit blowing as hard as it was blowing for a split second and then blew hard agian, i looked at the gauges and the battery light came on and then went off................ i turned off the A/C and rolled down the windows............ about 10 mins after that while driving someone in front of me was going slow so i goosed it a little to get around him, well the gauges on my car all went to zero and the battery light came on (this happened for a split second, like the car was resetting itself or something) but i could still operate the gas and brake and the car was in drive while this was going on.......... once i saw this i decided not to goose it anymore so i slowed down............. 5 mins after the gauges went to zero, it happened agian, the gauges went to zero and what i mean by zero is like all the needles on all the gauges were in the position of the car being turned off, but the battery light was on but i could still operate the gas and brake and steer and the car was still in drive.............. it stayed like this for 10 to 15 seconds and then the needles went up and came back down like normal ( like what happens after you start your car) After that i just drove at a nice steady pace and when i needed to accel i did it slow, i did that the whole way home and the car didnt act funny at all.
Does anyone out there know what is causing my car to do this? is it a bad computer card? is something shorting out? Any advise anyone has would be great.
Sounds like a loose connection. Ground or plug somewhere in dash. It would probably be easiest to go to the Ford dealer, since they know the wiring that would connect your heater blower to your gauges.
this morning i replaced all the fuses in both fuse boxes and here in a min i am going to take the instrument panel out and see if there is any loose connections. this morning when i was changing the fuses i saw a ground wire that started at the front left headlight and ran across the left side of the engine bay and went behind the fire wall, it looked like it was going to the gauges so i will see if thats whats up, but here is what happened today............ i was driving, not gunning it or anything, just cruising and listening to the radio when the radio cut out for a split second and then i looked at the gauges and they were doing the same thing they did the day before, the battery light came on and the gauges dropped to zero, went all the way up and then came back down like normal and while it was doing this, i acceled a little and then pushed the brake to slow down, i turned the steering wheel and everything, i had complete control of the car the whole time, i also looked at the clock in my car to see if that went off and it didnt, it steel was reading the normal time, if anyone has any idea what it might be, let me know, i am going to go look behind the gauges now, i will respond soon and let you know what i found out.........
there is a short circuit somewhere and i dont think it's inside the vehicle. it could be from the main fuse box or your alternator wiring, or possibly the IC regulator inside the alternator. you never mentioned that you stalled so i guess you did not. have the electrical system checked ASAP. and i assure you, your guages are just fine.
The only time my radio started to cut out was when my bat was going dead. It sounds like your alternator is cutting in and out. You should get the alt tested. Make sure the battery terminals have a good connection and there isn't any corrosion around them.
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2004 3.9L/auto
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Thanks for all the responses guys but here is what i have done so far............. i took the instrument panel out and checked the two connections that were in the back, i cleaned them off, blew off the circuit board because it had some dust on it connected everything back together and drove it and it still did the same thing so i called it a day after that.................. well today i was looking at one of the 5 emission control codes that came up on my car during a diagnostic check, the one i was looking at was P1413 SAI circuit low voltage............ well i found my Secondary air intake or smog pump and i took it out of the car and took it apart and that thing was rusted really bad and here is a question, is the smog pump supposed to have water in it? when i took it apart it had a lot of water in it so i was just wondering if that was normal. I also had a haynes book with me and it told me while the engine was cold, remove the air cover on the smog pump and then start the engine and check to see if there was any fresh air being pulled into the pump, well i checked it there wasnt so i went to the zone and put a new one on order. while i was driving to the zone i was messing with the car while my gauges were being weird and i noticed that when the gauges start acting weird, and i put on my turn signal, the gauges will stop going crazy, everything will be normal. i got to auto zone and asked them to check my battery and alternator, they did and they said everything was perfect, there is no corrosion on the terminals and everything has a good connection, i have been talking to them about this little issue i am having and they are trying to help me. i hope everything i have said in this will help you guys narrow it down somemore, i also hope i answered all of your questions, let me know if you think of anything else............... and hatawna, my car has never stalled while this has been going on, i can accel and stop and steer just fine, but let me know if you think of anything else..... any of you, thanks for the help
do you have a volt meter? preferably a digital one. check the voltage at a power point, or at the fuse box. shouldnt read below 13 with the car running. you could have corrosion in the battery cables, causing low voltage at the circuits in the vehicle, but not at the actual battery itself. ive seen it happen many times in cars.
you also may have a bad connection at the fuse box. there is one under the hood, and one up under the dash. check the wires going into them. there usually is a main power wire that feeds the box.
when i got the car there was corrosion in the battery cables so i replaced them and since then i have kept my battery and cables corrosion free. i planned on buying a volt meter this friday and i will do what you said snowboarder, if everything checks out good with the volt meter, i am going to buy a new cluster gauge from americanmuscle and put it in and if the car keeps doing it then my last resort is take it to the dealer and let them look at it, i am not taking it to the dealer right away because i know they will charge me a lot just to look at the car, plus they take forever here. thanks for the info, i will let you know whats up when i get the volt meter............. oh and snowboarder or anyone else, give me some places to start checking with the volt meter, thanks.
i beg to disagree on the volt meter. you could use it to test how much current is given off by each wire but it's not gonna pinpoint the root of the problem. since the guages go on/off intermittenly, i believe it's a grounding problem, a loose connection or a switch gone bad. there could be an open wire/spliced wire that touches the car's metal by and by underneath the dash or behind the cluster. i had a similar experience before in my other car and i almost took the whole car apart, only to find out that the wiring for the cigarette lighter was causing it when it got scraped when i changed the shifter. before you pick up a new cluster, have a good auto electrician look into your problem.
well the volt meter will help you see where voltage is going and not going. i have a digital one i picked up from sears for 25 bucks...does the job. i also have a fluke one that i use for work.
you can also try moving around the wire plugs at the fuse box and see if anything cuts out or goes wacky. i found a plug issue with an 02 superduty after i unbolted the fuse box and checked the plugs.
ok, i wll go ahead and buy a volt meter and check things out like snowboarder wanted me to, i will also check for that grounding problem, loose connection or open/spliced wire that hatawna was talking about, if i cant find it i will take it to Rocket Performance and have them look at it, they are a performance mustang shop here in VA. As you can see i am trying to hold off on taking my car to a shop, pretty much everything wrong that has happened with my car i have fixed, i dont want this gauge problem to kick my butt, thanks for the info guys, if you think of anything else, let me know.
Just a thought, but is your battery properly grounded? I recently had a similar problem in my '95 with it doing all sorts of strange things. As it turns out (i've owned my car for a year), the person I bought it from replaced the negative battery cable and didn't ground it properly, so it didn't always connect and the alternater was running most everything. In fact, he didn't even clean up the old corrosion that was there from the old cable. It started with all my gauges doing strange things (months ago) and progressed to where the car would simply not turn over...or even crank. When I went to charge the battery, my charger told me it was full. It took a mustang specialty shop an hour do diagnose the problem.
Someone HELP! 
