ignition left on, now won't start with key.

[brokenknee]

Join the club, we have t-shirts I had many of these moments over the time. Like taking a compressor for busted for good - and it was just the overheating protection. Did not use my compressor for a year or so.

Where do I place my order?

 

[J_J]

I purchased mine at Home Depot.

 

[Jim Thompson]

I will be purchasing one tomorrow.

Jim

 

[doall]

we've all done something like that brokeknee. I once worked on my bil's 4 wheeler for 2 hours before I figured out that someone had cut off the red kill switch on the handle bars. He had already spent a day on it himself. I felt like such an idiot. I have never used that switch on mine and neither had he. But his 12 year old son did.:thumbsup:

 

[czechsonofagun]

In an unrelated electrical problem. I had a Toyota Camry, lost all power to dash, electric door locks, windows motors, Kept blowing fuses. Sure I could trace wires. Getting to the wire bundles was a big problem. Gave up for a while, and one day I thought to search the Internet for Toyota electrical problems, Read some interesting problems and fixes, and one of those was to check the wire bundle by the trunk hinge for abrasion. Sure enough, I could see the copper wire that was causing all the problem. Secured it down to the sidewall, and everything was good.

I had he same problem with driver's door on Jeep GC, all electrical buttons went dead. Checked the internet and apparently it is a known problem. Very glad I did my research before tearing into the door.

The guy with custom corvette shop I worked for last year would always go to the internet to figure things out, it beats flipping through book pages hands down.

 

[Mike Costello]

The internet is a great source of information. I had a 2000 Chrysler minivan that lost all input to the instrment cluster while driving home. No speedometer, tach, oil pressure, all ac, heater, defroster switches dead. An internet search revealed this as a known problem with the circuit board in the speedometer cluster involving poor quality solder. So I pulled the cluster, but could find no obvious problem. Using the internet again, I found a rebuiilder and shipped him my cluster for repair.
Now, for the goofy part of this story. I reinstalled the instrument cluster only to have nothing again. Got in contact with the rebuilder and we began (via emails) to diagnose the problem. Still nothing, so in frustration I decided to give it a rest for a day and began cleaning my shop floor. I backed the van out of the shop and after about 10ft. of reverse, everything lit up in the cluster. Now, I know all the plug in connections (only one large plug) were locked in because I carefully checked all that before installation. And, there was no sudden jolting of the van as I backed out. The rebuilder couldn't explain it either. Some things just don't have a logical answer. Needless to say, earlier this year that minivan and I parted company for an 2009 model year minivan. After 9 years, lets hope Chrysler has found a solution to the problem. Mike.

 

[brokenknee]

This is the signal/wire tracer that I have and can be found at Home Depot. I have used it quite a bit. Small and compact, Easy to hook up and trace.

Disconnect the vehicle battery while testing.

Gardner Bender Lan Tracker Wire Tracer, Gardner Bender - GET-4220K at The Home Depot

Here is a similar tester.

Gardner Bender ET64220 Wire Tracker Lan Tracker Wire Tracer #6787691 at HardwareAndTools.com

Stopped at Lowe's last night after work and picked up a tone generator kit. They did not have the one you had so I picked up this one. (I also had some Lowe's gift certificates I had not used )



Picture grabbed from the Internet.

I played with it a little this morning and I can see how it would be a great tool in finding wiring problems. The common complaint I see on reviews of of these tools is they are underpowered. How far should this tone generate. I only used a short piece of wire to test it this morning, I may have to try a test with something longer when I have time.

Thanks for pointing out what this can be used for. I have seen them in the store but did not know what practical application they would have for me.