Hi , Still searching for shorted ignition wire. Have disconnected several harness plugs but no luck. I have narrowed it down though. To recap, The ignition wire is shorted from the key switch right through to the engine. We disconnected the wire on the key switch and starter solenoid ,(it was shorted out there too) and we put a jumper wire from battery to solenoid, manually closed solenoid on fuel pump and machine started but would not move in forward or reverse. It was suggested that there must be power from this same ignition wire that powers the forward and reverse relay. In seaching for the short we found that when we disconnected the main harness by the loader control the wire from there back to the key switch was not grounded. When we reconnected it , the ignition wire was grounded out again. We moved along to the next main harness junction on the firewall below the steering wheel. Now the wire from the starter solenoid was no longer grounded. Therefore we thought the ground must be in a relay like maybe from the transmission shifter. We pulled all the relays and they looked ok. If there was a short in the wire after a relay, wouldn't that cause a relay to blow or could it maybe cause a relay to hold closed, thereby continuing to short out the entire ignition wire? Any suggestions appreciated.
I suck at electrical wire tracing.. but theres a tool on the market that does it for ya.. Power Probe.. check out the video.. theres a master kit that practically fixes it for ya.. lol I saw the master kit on craigs list at a pawn shop for 150.00..!!!!
Shorts are pretty hard to find and take time. What you said above in the quote seems to suggest that the short is in this section of wires. Wouldn't you think,. It's pretty hard to tell without a schematic of your machine, do you have one? Usually, a short will blow a fuse but not always. Here's what I do to find a short....( this is assuming with the key OFF, there is nothing running on the machine, alarm, radio etc ) I remove the positive cable from the battery and install a test light between the cable end and the positive battery post. You could also use a meter set on mill-amps. If the test light lights up, you have a short to ground, I then remove one fuse at a time until the light goes out. This tells me what circuit the short is in and go from there with a schematic. Good luck.