Battery Smoked, Electrical ****! HELP

[89shoZuL]

Hey guys.. well i keep having these little problems after my 3.2 swap here's
the newest adventure...

Coming home on the freeway.. driving, stero on, climate control OFF, lights
on... all of a sudden.. ABS light turns on.. air bag light flashes.. lights in car
get brighter. The next thing that went was the lights.. they kept flickering
and getting dimmer and dimmer.. finally off.. all i had was parking lights. I
then pulled over. Just before turning off my car.. my tach started going
crazy, and i turned the car off right away.

Getting out and looking under the hood.. the vents for the battery had
popped off and smoke was coming out... there was no water or acid in the
battery, it had all come out.

I had the car towed home.. (took 3 hours to get a tow truck.. to add to it
all.. ugh ) soon as i got home i took out the old baking soda and made
sure all the acid was off the car and then took the battery out. I replaced it
with another one i had laying around in my 89. I hooked it up.. and the car
starts fine.

But i have some huge electrical problems... my unlock switch turns on the
lights in my dash.. my alarm doesn't work anymore.. keypad or remote.. my
lock switch works only when the car is on.. and acutally turns the lights on.
The radio does not work what so ever. The climate control works.. a/c and
heat. No interior lights work. I checked the fuses under the dash and inside
the hood. I looked at the two fusible links that i saw that run from the fuse
box under the hood, and there is powering going to them, 12.8V.

I'm completely clueless?!? and have run out of options.. i did a search and
found a post with someone with the same problem.. but only two posts were
made but nothing of help.


Help Guys!
Thanks~

EDIT: Forgot to add.. i JUST installed a new alternator.. and battery.. both
were working perfectly. I suppose the alternator could be bad and
overcharging the battery.. but that doesn't relate to these electrical issues..
right?.. sigh :cry:

 

[SHOZ123]

What's the voltage when the car is running at 1500 rpm?

 

[89shoZuL]

After one saturday.. i'm down to this!

Well i replaced the alternator... recharged a new battery.. and most of the
stuff came back to life. The unlock switch was still not working correctly and
was turning on the lights. The radio was a no go and the interior lights were
dead, among with other things. I found the fuse that was burnt.. took it out..
replaced it with another 15 amp fuse. It instantly blew.. so i knew it was a
short somewhere.

I loaded up my ford service dvd and looked up all the things connected to
that fuse.. and chased them.. clock, radio, autolamp, etc... finally i checked
the ford keyless entry in the trunk. Unscrewing it and taking it out.. i smelled
exactly what i wanted to smell.. burnt electronics! I found the short.. so i
unplugged it.. and put another 15 amp in and everything came back to life.

After taking out the alarm.. i opened it up and looked for what turned into
toast.. and it was a cap inside the alarm.. it blew up and then one of the
arms was pushed against the other..creating the short. I took that cap out
and replaced it with another that i found in my scrap boxes.. lucky find! I put
the new cap on the board and put back together the alarm system. Plugged
that baby in and the alarm is now working perfectly. All systems are a go!

 

[hawkeye18]

you lucky ba*tard. most people search the entire life of their car and never find out what went wrong. Good on ya!