Power stays on circuits with ignition switch off

[bigbrownpilot]

No luck finding an answer on the 1961-1963 message board, so I'll try here. My 1963 is running a one-wire alternator (which eliminates the Voltage Regulator) with a Pertronix 1281 Ignitor breakerless ignition and a standard coil (not a Flamethrower). It came this way from the previous owner when I bought it. When I start it, it powers up the fuel gauge, the temp gauge, the oil pressure light, and the A/C blower fan if it is not in the OFF position. Probably other circuits as well that should be powered with the car ignition in RUN. When I turn off the ignition, the engine shuts down just fine, but all of those circuits I mentioned stay powered until I remove power to the car at the negative battery terminal. If I reconnect power with the ignition switch in the OFF position, nothing is powered until I start the car again. So every time I want to shut off the car I have to pop the hood and disconnect the negative battery terminal with a knife switch. I've already changed the ignition switch, so I don't think it's a problem inside the switch. I've looked at the wiring from the ignition switch to the coil, from the coil to the distributor, and everything coming into and out of the fuse box and I cant find anything that would cause this. So, I'm stumped and looking for any clue as to what is going on. Electrical gurus, please chime in!

Thanks,
Dave

[kbuhagiar]

Just spitballing here, but it sounds as if someone installed a latching relay in the Ignition circuit, although I have no idea why someone would do that.
Some LR circuits are designed to shut off a few minutes after power is removed; have you waited a few minutes to see if they go off on their own?

Besides the one-wire alternator, are there any other indications that a PO attempted to 'modernize' the electrical system?

[bigbrownpilot]

Ken, thanks for the reply. No, it will stay on as long as I keep the battery negative connected. I probably would never have noticed had I not hooked up the oil pressure warning light circuit. I’ll look for a stray relay but haven’t noticed one. Beside the one-wire alternator, there’s a high-torque starter and the previous owner installed a Classic Auto Air AC system. There’s a white wire that comes out of the firewall and runs along the big wiring harness then under the upper radiator support, but it doesn’t interface with the ignition switch coil, distributor, or starter. It’s for the AC system. So I’m still stumped. I’ll keep digging!

[bigbrownpilot]

I found the problem. When I went to replace one of my power window switches I found mystery wiring. A green wire with insulation stripped off and a black wire I thought was a ground but turned out to be hot. Neither show up on a wiring diagram and both appear to have been added. I soon discovered almost by accident that the black wire was the one causing the car to stay energized with the ignition off and engine shut down. I think someone previously jumpered a hot wire to bypass the window relay and make the window switches work, but I’m not really sure what’s going on yet other than my console is torn apart, I have two wires that don’t seem to be Ford standard, and my windows don’t work now. But I found out what has been causing circuits to stay energized with the ignition on and key out.

[kbuhagiar]

Congratulations - I think?

I've faced this sort of situation many times.
The good news is you found what was causing the problem.
The bad news is realizing that this may be just the first of several wiring 'improvements' done over the years.

Back when these were just old cars, in the 70s and 80s, before we had access to the wealth of information available through the Internet, many wiring hobbyists (and some pros) would just wing it based on their general knowledge and experience, especially with more complicated cars like the Thunderbird.

Good luck!

[bigbrownpilot]

Ken, you are 100% correct. This looked like an old wiring job with solder instead of crimps, no heat shrink, etc. and, I hate to admit it, but other than trying to restore the factory wiring to match the diagram as best I could, I also wound up using a jumper wire to get power to the window switches. My wiring job is a lot cleaner and ai added a 30 amp fuse to the jumper wire. It’s also easy to unplug from the Ford connector and remove. My plan is to see if replacing the window power relay fixes everything, but for now I have power to operate the window switches until a new relay arrives. Hopefully it turns out to be temporary but for wow it works and at least is a protected circuit.

[bigbrownpilot]

Here’s the rest of the wiring story: Some previous owner ran a black wire from the heater/blower circuit breaker and jumpered the power window switch circuit to get it to work. It looks like an older installation, not recent. The window switch wiring was all hacked up-- Yellow wires spliced to red wires, the buss bar between one of the front and rear switches was missing (found that in the glove box). I re-connected everything as per the factory wiring diagram, but at the end of the day still didn't have power windows. The added black wire was routing power to the black center terminal on one of the power window switches I replaced, which connected it to all the other switches as well, but it was also back-feeding somehow through the power window relay which is why all the START/RUN circuits were staying energized with the ignition off and key out until I disconnected the battery negative terminal. I decided to create a new temporary jumper circuit for the window switches from an unused terminal block under the console but protect it with a 30 amp fuse. I disconnected the power to the window relay and that eliminated the back-feeding problem with the jumper circuit. I ordered a new power window relay, and when it comes in I'll see if I can run the windows off the factory wiring as God intended. The beauty is all I have to do is pull the 30 amp fuse to disable the jumper circuit and if the new relay doesn't fix it just put the fuse back to get windows to work!

[kbuhagiar]

The beauty is all I have to do is pull the 30 amp fuse to disable the jumper circuit and if the new relay doesn't fix it just put the fuse back to get windows to work!

Excellent idea. Sounds like you are on the right track.
If you are willing to devote enough time, I'm sure you can eventually figure out how to get them working using Henry Ford's wiring.

[bigbrownpilot]

Unfortunately, the new window relay didn't send power to the window switches, so this is a problem for another day with the previously-described work-round still in place to power the windows.

Here's the update on the other electrical issues-- I finally figured out why the horn circuit was dead and the shift index light was on whenever there was power on the car. One of the previous owners put the horn connector into the receptacle for the shifter light and the shifter light into the horn receptacle. Jeez, if I had figured that out a while ago, it would have saved me a lot of #@* pain. In the process of diagnosing all this, I must have damaged the turn signal wiring because the right signals didn't work at all. I ordered a new turn signal switch and painstakingly was able to thread the wiring through the column. Still something wrong, though, because when I matched up the wiring colors and activated the right turn signal switch, the left signal came on, and vice-versa. Remember, this is after finding the window switches hot-wired to bypass the relay and the red wires spliced to the yellow wires and vice-versa in one often window switches. In the case of the turn signals, I just swapped the input pins from the new turn signal switch around to get it to work properly. I don't know who decided to wire everything backwards in this car but I hope when they die they are cursed to work on Lucas, Volvo or Saab electrical systems for eternity. Anyway, after all the wiring was correctly (sort of) plugged up I was able to get the shift index light working only when the parking or headlights are on and I installed a new Grant adapter and horn kit (the Grant wheel can with the car) to get a working horn finally! I haven't found the secret to getting the turn signals to auto-cancel yet, but that's a minor nuisance compared to all the other issues.

[bigbrownpilot]

More success. As I probably mentioned, someone had previously hot-wired the power window circuit (black wire) to the fuse box but left the power window relay connected. Basically, the constant-hot power was back-feeding through the relay once it closed and it was staying energized and powering all the circuits on the ignition switch. Once I figured that out and disconnected the wires to the relay I was able to power the window switches, but it was still a jumper wire job to the black wires in the window switch circuit. I purchased a new relay several months ago, but when I originally tried hooking everything up it still didn't work correctly. I decided to do some more investigating and noticed that the wires to from the firewall to the relay were in bad shape near the connectors, so I cut them back a bit and installed new connectors. After reading an article I had saved on Power Window Troubleshooting and studying my '63 window power wiring diagram, I realized how to connect the wires correctly to the relay. Once I verified that the relay was clicking and getting power when I turned the ignition switch on, I disconnected the jumper wire in the console I had installed as a temporary work-around and, lo and behold, fully functioning power windows on all switches through the factory circuit! My next minor success was realizing that the light in the trunk probably just needed a new bulb installed, and looking through my spares I found one, so I have a working trunk light again. The last system I got working again was the window washer circuit. I searched through the wire bundles under the hood expecting to find a disconnected black wire for the pump, but could not locate one. I decided to run a new wire from the black connector on the wiper switch through the firewall just under the t-fitting for the wiper hoses and then hide the wire along the wiper hose from the t-fitting to the pump and cover it with heat shrink. Basically all my electrical circuits work now!

[kbuhagiar]

Well done! Glad to hear that your hard work has paid off. There's nothing like the satisfaction of a problem solved.

Time to celebrate with an adult beverage or three!

What's the next challenge?

[bigbrownpilot]

What's the next challenge?

Mostly cosmetic stuff- trunk mats and boards, nicer floor mats, and eventually replacing the 15" K-H clone wire wheels with something easier to care for and maintain. Lots of rust pockets behind the spokes and the spinners. New 1" wide whitewalls- I really don't care for the "gangster whitewalls". I'm also thinking I may need a larger brake booster- probably a 9" single chamber. Right now the car is running great, so I'll chase down these other projects as time and money allow.