about 3 months ago i put a 3 gage pod of glowshift gages in my 01 and starting a few days ago sometimes they turn on randomly while it is sitting in the driveway, and even without the key in when i hit the brake pedal they turn on, and it is all wired on its own circuit. any ideas? and when they turn on randomly the way i got them to turn off was to turn on my airflow selector ****. so not sure whats goin on there

 

It sounds like a bad ground somplace letting it backfeed.

 

i think it may be the ignition switch, cause when i open the door it dings like the key is in and on accessory position, and the radio stays on too, and now turning the key doesnt start it, doesnt even try now

 

It probably ran the battery down. Put a good charger on it for a while and try starting it after it has had a chance to charge. Something back feeding could easily run the battery down.

 

Check your grounds.

I had fun chasing down odd electrical issues with my rig:

https://www.dieselbombers.com/ford-p...al-issues.html

 

it did run the battery down...i replaced the ignition switch and that didnt change anything unfortunately, i am wondering if my starter solonoid has gone bad because turning the key to crank doesnt do anything anymore but i still need to check we think it could be neutral safety switch as well, but we will see. and now my guages dont turn on anymore with the brake pedal but now my fog lights will randomly shut off at night then come back on about ten minutes later. i will go through checking the grounds when i get some time and see whats up with that and i will be checkin alot of circuits with my handy dandy test light.

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i will check out my fuse panel as well cause i did infact have a small leak on the driver side of the windshield right over where the steering wheel is so maybe its the same deal
thank you

 

I had odd things happening like the heater/blower fan randomly running with the key off and odd ball stuff like that killing the battery. I also had relays randomly firing on/off. First thought was my ignition switch was bad, but unplugging it did not resolve any issues. Traced it all back to shorting in the fuse panel itself. There's four bolts that hold it to the dash and two main wiring harnesses bolted to the back. Remove all that. Then on the inside edge are two plug ins for the GEMs box (GEMs is bolted to the back of that fuse panel).

Under the two harnesses that bolt to the fuse box I found some moisture.

I removed the GEMS from the back of the fuse panel and took it apart to see if the circuit board was corroded or something like that, it was fine. I then carefully pried open the fuse panel some and found the copper traces inside were all corroded and wet. A trip to a junkyard later and $30 I had a new fuse panel and GEMS unit. Threw that in and all my issues went away.

I found that if the battery went low, I had to unplug the glowshift gauges for it to reset itself. Otherwise it the gauges would do some odd things. I image the code isn't the most robust thing to handle all oddball situations.

 

that is the same stuff that is happening and i did the same thing with the ignition switch cause it dinged like the key was in all the time and my radio would stay on half the time, the blowers were the same, and no start still not sure about that one but i will have some time this weekend to take a better look at it and hopefully crack this.