Help Needed Airbag And Oil Warning Lights

[lamby290881]

Hi All, im a newbie on here but would realy appreciate some help or advice

 

i have a problem with my Mk1 1996 2.0 DOHC ford Galaxy it all started last week when i had a flat battery as i hadnt use it for approx a month so needed to jump start it. it startd first time as usual but i did notice the instrument cluster was going crazy i.e backlights behind clocks where flickering and also ABS light was flashing/flickering and the 4 dials where twiching. so i decided to take it to a local auto shop for advice when i noticed the speedo going crazy and showing i was going up to 150mph but the digital miles seemed to be working fine. the lad at the auto shop tested my battrey and asked me to start it up and switch everyting on then told me to turn it off and told me i had an earthing fault as the battery was good and alternator was charging the battery.

 

So i search the internet all night baffeled by the fault and found a couple of similar problems and suggestings to clean the cluster PCB so thats what i done after reinstalling the instrument panel and finding out nothing had changed so i decided take it along the road to an auto electrian but after about 2 miles the clocks went haywire for a couple of seconds worse than they already where then corrected themselves back to normal so i thought great job done turned around and drove home.

 

later that night i had to pick a friend up from the train station so off i went distance about 20mile max about 18 mile highway 2 mile city roads traffic lights etc when i was about 100 meters away from the station i noticed all lights timming radio turned off battery light lite up car stalled battery died so had to call RAC to recover me.

 

The next morning i rang ford and told them everything and was told to take it in but would proberbly need a new battery(

[kester]

presume the battery light on dash DOES go out when you start the engine? I fitted an alternative alternator and the charging wire wasn't connected right on side of alternator, and it wasn't charging the battery, until I cut the connector and connected it right. Now its worked for months. Good luck

[lamby290881]

Thank you for your advice but when i went to take the bairns to school yesterday morning the battery was flat but this time for some reason when attaching the jump leads negitive to my engine like it states in the owners hand book there was nothing attached it to the battery and presto car starts so i left it running for 10 min but could smell burning from the engine bay so decided to take it to an auto electrician who told me the alternator was faulty and that it was that that smelt of burning and advised me to replace it with a new one, i asked them if they where sure and was told "YES if we remove the leads from the alternator the instrument cluster return to normal but when we reattach them it throughs up loads of electrical faults so i told the to go ahaed and order it.

 

Collected car today

[chrispb123456]

The earthing problem does sound very likely, as you suggested earlier when you connected your jump lead to the engine and then to the battery, have a look around by the starter motor there should be an earth lead there also, it may be corroded or broken away.

[gregers]

long shot,hows the state of the fuse box under the bonnet?

[cyborg]

Hi there,

 

Sounds like you have a parasitic drain , You can test by checking the voltage drop across the fuses or you could save time

and check wires behind tail gate rubbers and all door rubbers,Its very common for the wires to fray and connect to each other.

 

broken wires will easily discharge a weak battery in a night & especily if you do lots of short journeys not giving the battery time to charge.