My 1994 Buick Park Avenue

Astral Traveler

Astral Traveler

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A while back I bought this 1994 Buick PA. It’s in great condition and only has 78k miles on the meter. I got it kind of cheap as it wanted to stall when it got warm and idled. I fixed that issue, and replaced the noisy water pump. It ran great for a while until last week when all the gauges (except speedometer), all the warning lights, and the entire Starship Enterprise information center lights (except the “SECURITY” light) died as I started the car.

The fuse is OK, and everything else works. I suspected the ignition switch, but that doesn’t look like the culprit on the schematics, as other things would have stopped working as well.

Any bright ideas?

 
Mad_Hater said:
Have no idea with that one, hopefully not too expensive... My grandma had a '99 Bonneville with the 3.8 and I really wish we kept it. Tons of space, comfy, strong engine and 17-25mpg.
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I really love the car, it's amazing IMO. I usually fix things myself, so it seldom costs me more than parts (which may be expensive) and a lot of time.
 
Astral Traveler said:
I really love the car, it's amazing IMO. I usually fix things myself, so it seldom costs me more than parts (which may be expensive) and a lot of time.
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With my limited knowledge I would definitely think it's a fuse if all those gauges suddenly stopped working and weird that the speedo still works. Normally a gauge will probably go out one at a time not all at once like that.
 
Our 2005 Toyota did something weird one night. Drove it to a restaurant. Went out after dinner and it wouldn’t start. But the dash lost its mind. All the warning lights were lit…. Or blinking. Solenoid didn’t even go click. Radio might have still worked. On a whim, we hooked up jumper cables and it started. Drove it to my in laws and shut it off. Wouldn’t restart. So next day went and got a battery. That was all it was. I think that battery was still in the car when we traded it.

That is probably not your issue. Just thought I’d throw it out there as weird crap that happens to cars today.
 
CoyotesGator said:
Holy cow!
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Yep! There is 3 ohms between the cable from the fuse box and ground. As far as I know I have disconnected everything it powers and it still shorts out. Unless I missed something that means the cable itself is damaged and is connected to ground. The harness disappears behind the dashboard and runs all the way to the passenger side. Finding it will be a nightmare.
 
CoyotesGator said:
@Astral Traveler
What's it ohm end to end?
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I don’t know yet. One of the problems is that I don’t know where the cable terminates. It disappears into the cable harness, then gets split off somewhere along the way. I’ve now disconnected everything the cable is supposed to feed, and it’s still shorted to ground. I can only assume the cable itself is damaged somewhere.

If I can only find where it terminates I’ll just bypass it.
 
We see it all the time at work on our older cars. Granted most are Crown Victorias but even done of the other "off fleet" cars do it. In 99% of the cases, it's a couple grounds in the cluster that have gone bad and need to be re-flowed.
One way to check, this sounds funny but it may work to get you from A to B a few times, is to use the palm of your hand and smack the top of the dash really hard a few times to see if it wakes up at all.
 
Turn your key the whole way, as if to start. with it in the start position what light is on the dash now? 94 GM we are dealing with non key issue if yellow security light is on dash solid
 
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