Electrical Issues, intermittent power

Posted by CarFreak On 2023/7/5 8:56:15

I will start this off by saying that I did have the 56 Patrician running last year. I did get all the windows to go up and down. I was able to actuate the door locks via the button on the underside of the dash. I was able to manipulate the suspension via the solenoids, the motor, and the leveling switch as of last week.

Now my issue:

Yesterday I got to the point of wanting to test some of the parts I installed on the car and got connected. I attached the negative cable to the battery and turned the key to on and nothing. No giant click from under the hood, no interior lights, nothing. I start probing around with a test light and I see I have no power to the fuse box, the battery terminal on the ignition switch, or the cigar lighter. The windows and door locks are not working. I probe in the engine bay and I see I have power at the red wire coming off of the voltage regulator and power at the circuit breaker connected to the power window/seat/lock relays on the firewall. but nothing under the dash was showing power.

Now Things I have done in the past week was connected the license plate lights, tail lights, reverse lights, fuel tank sending unit, front parking lights, and headlights. The suspension, windows, and door locks were all wired up prior to this weekend and did work.

I will also point out the dash lights are LED and I am running a headlight relay harness that has the signal/switch wire to the relays from the junction block on the passenger fender. One relay is for high beams, the other is for low. The relays are getting their power from the red wire terminal on the voltage regulator.

I kept probing looking for issues when all of a sudden I saw I was finally getting power to the back side of the ignition switch. I tried turning the key to on and I lost power again. This happened a couple more times until I was able to get power to the ignition switch and it stayed on. With the key in the on position and the headlight switch in the parking light position the dash lights illuminated, and both turn signal indicators on the dash. tail lights worked, reverse lights worked, and license plate lights worked, brake lights work. left front parking light turned on and off with the headlight switch, the right did not. No Idea why the passengers did not work, the orange wires going to and front were showing power, and the bulb socket was showing it was getting power, I even used a jumper wire from the housing to a good ground and the light still wouldnt illuminate. the bulb ohmed out good, so I dont know why that wouldnt work, any ideas?

The head lights would not work in low beams, but a press of the high beam switch and both turned on. I thought my new high beam switch was bad but after checking with a multi meter I saw I had the switch wired wrong. So I unplugged the battery, swapped some wires around, plug the battery back in. With the key off I pulled the headlight switch all the way out, lights came on, hit the high beam switch and then lost power to everything again and could not get power back again. Again, this is no power to the back of the switch, but power at the red wire on the voltage regulator.

What can cause this no power to the dash intermittently? One thing I noticed is when nothing is working, I pull the headlight switch to either park or headlight position and any good ground is causing my test light to light up.

Is this what a short was? if so, I didnt see any smoke and everything I touched didnt seam to get hot. I didnt smell anything either. Well that may not actually be true, I did smell what I thought was fireworks since the neighborhood was firing off fireworks for an hour at that point. But again no smoke.

What would cause this power issue? both indicators being on the dash but no the tail lights? and the passenger parking light not working?