Day didn't go like I'd planned..........

For my daily driver, I've been driving a '99 Olds 88 our daughter hit a deer with a year ago July.

Lately, the car has been intermittently doing some strange things, I mean bigtime strange. Like if you hit the left turn signal, it sounds like a telephone ringing unger the dash, timed to the flashes of the turn signal. Then, sometimes when you hit the left turn signal for a lane change, the cruise will disengage. Sometimes the alarm chimes will go off at random, and hitting the right turn signal will turn the chimes off. It all would happen for a half day, and then be OK for a week. Then start up again.

When I came home last night, the left low beam was only about half as bright as it should be. Everything pointed to the left front.

I recalled that when I fixed the car from the deer hit, a wiring harness leading to the left headlights looked like it had been pinched, but I examined the wires and found no damage at the time. But, I got to thinking about it again relative to the recent strange goings on and decided to check the wires again.

So, I sidetracked my other shop work for the day and ran the Olds in. Unfortunately, getting at that area of the wiring harness requires the headlights and header panel be removed. So I tore into it, pulled the header panel, took the wiring harnesses apart and couldn't find any damage to the wires. But with the headlights on, if I shook one harness I could get the left headlight and parking light to flicker. Did some more checking, and Ta-Dah (drum rolls) found a loose nut on a ground lug inside the left fender behind the ABS unit.

Tightened the ground lug, lights came on to their intended brilliance, and presumabley everything else works like it should again. Wouldn't have needed to pull the header panel to get at the ground lug.

But, truth be told, I was never satisfied with the color match I'd done on the header panel and hood when I fixed the deer hit. Probably no one else would ever notice the mismatch, but I was aware of it and it bugged me. So, while I had the header panel off anyway, I prepped it and reshot it, adjusting the color in the process. Tomorrow morning, I'll put it back together and go back to what I should have done today. Sometime, I'll take a couple of hours to redo the hood.

Just one of those non-typical days.

don't it always happen that way ? some little stupid thing can drive a guy nuts all day Glad ya found the loose nut. at least it wasn't the one runnin the wrench.

4 or 5 lines into your post I was screaming "I hope he checks the grounds before tearing into things too far"!

There's one thing I learned about 40 years ago, when electrical problems don't make any sence, start checking grounds and or start running ground wires from panel to panel and it will usually fix the problem. Here in Mn. were always fighting rust on older vehicles. Glad you found your problem.

Funny part was, I replaced the negative cable on the battery and cleaned the main ground lug a month ago and everything worked OK for a couple of weeks. After that, I guess I kinda spaced off grounds and didn't look for more of them.

If I had a dime for every trailer wired up with bad grounds I'd be rich. Guys figure the four wire harness with ground on the tongue should work fine. 99% of the time it doesn't or shortly after installation starts acting up. I always run a ground wire on trailers.

rewired my semi trailer this summer.went to get it saftied and the right signal would flash alternatly with the clearence light.I figured I might have crossed wires somewhere ,so re examened and nope all wired right.Knew it must be ground so checked continuity of ground wire,BINGO wire was broke in the middle and was usless.replaced it and good to go.

Hey, Goose, I was just wondering how you adjusted the color of the paint. Do you mix your own paint? Or buy a different shade? Thanks, NorminN.B.

This is a kind of tan color, actually the book calls it "Light Antelope".

The paint was a tad too dark, so I added some pure metallic to lighten it a bit. I got a few ounces of the pure metallic from the place I buy my paint.

I once went to Sherwin Williams factory automotive paint school. We spent two whole days on color match. Kinda fascinating. It was a hands on school with a paint gun in our hand half the time. The instructors had a half dozen fenders, some metallic, some non. They had painted the fenders with the original color shifted off just a bit, and we students had to figure out what the instructors had done and mix paint to bring it back to the original color.

If a color doesn't match, you have to ask yourself, is it too yellow? Is it too red? Is it too blue? I still have a chart from that school telling what to add to make a particular change.

I should have said it was a metallic color on the Olds.

Its amazing how many guys put a four prong connector on, and wonder why its always giving them fits. Lets see- LT, RT, Tail and Brakes- that pretty much takes up your 4 wires, with ground trying to find its way through your well greased trailer ball.

Green - right turn/brake
Yellow - left turn/brake
brown - clearance/running
white - ground

The new four wire harnesses only have 42" white ground. I run a white wire all the way back so I know it's grounded.

What about the trailer brakes?

6 pin for trailers with brakes. 4 pin are not for trailers with brakes.

Meant 4 pin without brakes.

My wife"s 99 Grand Prix GT is silvermist metallic, it was a theft recovery a buddy redid in late "04, I bought it from him- his color match was a bit off.

I managed to clip a crosswalk pole at 5mph dead on in pouring rain with oncoming headlights (enough excuses!) and to save a few bucks painted the panels myself for the body guy- they turned out like poo. Two years later I pulled the hood, front facia and also the rear deck spoiler due to fade and my poor re paint.

Had Napa match the paint, used a light color primer- came out to perfectly match the ORIGINAL color and now the fender and door repainted by the friend I got the car from are a bit dark.....but nobody but a bodyman notices!