Car is an 04, a couple of weeks ago the battery went dead so i jumped it, but it died again a few days later, so I just replaced the battery. Old battery was an unknown, was in the car when we got it and I didn't bother trying to decode its age, I just replaced it. A week of so later it is dead again, so I know I have a bad battery or a draw. Put another known good battery from another car in and within 3 days it is dead, so I know I have a draw. Up until this point everything was working fine, I just had to find my draw.

Started off with the good old VOM and some fuse pulling but I couldn't find one that effected the draw so I removed the alternator and taped up the cable. Charged the battery and let it sit 3 days, no luck, battery dead. So I put another battery in and tried the fuse puling again starting with 9 & 35 that seem to show up in every thread. No luck there, but when I got to #23 "soundbooster" the draw dropped into the normal range. I put that fuse back in and pulled the radio fuse to see if the radio, an aftermarket Kenwood, was giving the amp a signal, but the draw remained the same. So now I've located my draw and I go searching for this issue but don't find anything about a constant draw with the amp, has anyone had this problem before? That fix is easy, I just left teh fuse out and teh battery has stayed up for 10 days now.

So now I notice that my interior light isn't working, my initial thought is I had it turned off, so I wasn't concerned. Next I realize that the power locks are not working.

When I push the button on the fob the lights flash and I can hear the relay clicking so it appears that that much of the system is working, but no sound from the back. Went back to the fusebox to make sure everything was good and it is. Did some reading and found out about the water problem in the right rear so I pulled it apart, but it is dry as a bone. Probing around with my VOM I find 12V at 2 of the larger wires but I don't have a clue from there. I took the pump apart and briefly applied power directly to the pump motor and it ran. So now I am at a loss as to what is next. I haven't been able to find a schematic of the system that tells me what wire triggers the pump and clearly this module runs lots more stuff. Anybody out there have an ideas or suggestions?

I have to think the amp and the locking pump module are two different issues that just happened around the same time.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!


I put paragraph breaks in your opening post to make it easier to read. No one here is expected to be a 'writer', but keep in mind many of us are over 60. (And that goes for the REST of you.)
---- pizzaguy

 

If it’s the amp just unplug it (passenger side footwell)
install an after market unit wired directly to the battery

you can get everything you need from a car audio shop or from EBay

 

I have some OEM amps available if you decide to replace the amp with an OEM Infinity amp. RedDogNumber1@aol.com . . . Bob Davis

 

Well, I'm pretty confident the vacuum pump mechanism is toast, I can't get anything from it, took it apart and only one spot on the circuit board looks funky and it tests out to have zero resistance so it must be making contact.

Now the amp is a different matter, I never looked on TV that side but the carpet is wet and we haven't had rain in days and when I pulled the amp out it was covered in what looked like sweat. I guess my first chore is to figure out where the moisture is coming from.

Anybody out there have a pump assembly with a bad pump but looks good otherwise? I can tell my pump does work and it is clean as a whistle, not cruddy/rusty as I see in lots of pictures of failed units.

Thanks for as ny leads or suggestions. Now off to do some searching!

 

Your gutter drains are clogged. They are under the plastic cowl cover. One drain on each side and two in the middle. You have to pull off the wiper arms to remove the plastic cowl cover. Install the missing wiper isolator grommet while you're in there. I'm not at home so can't get you links but all the information you need is on the forum. 😀

 

When the right side gutter drain is clogged. Water pools up and then overflows into the heater / AC fan compartment and drains down into the passenger side footwell. All will become clear when you open it up and get inside there.

I have a central locking pump module as well as an OEM amp if you need them.

 

My first stop tomorrow will be to get a small puller to get the wipers off, I tried wiggling, etc with no success, I can see tons of crap down there. Found that tip on a quick search. Another question I haven't found an answer is the hose going down by the amp a blower from the a/c to cool the amp? There is a about 1 inch diameter plastic duct hose running down that way.

I think amp may be ok once dried out, it worked fine but had that draw. I opened it up and it looked pretty good inside.

Tell me about a pump. I see about 50 on ebay but how do these junkyards know they are good? I'm not afraid of used parts but an always cautious about special items with known troubles. What do you want for a good one and where are you at?

Thanks

 

I would never attempt to work on any vehicle without the service manual. It is available in our technical section as a download. The wiring diagrams are inaccurate and incomplete, but fairly useful.
It is impressive you made it as far as you did without using any documentation.


I put paragraph breaks in your opening post to make it easier to read. No one here is expected to be a 'writer', but keep in mind many of us are over 60. (And that goes for the REST of you.)

 

Thank you for you editing Pizzaguy, I understand about the difficulty of reading some of this stuff as I sit here with my readers perched on my nose! Most of the forums I have used compact everything so I have become accustomed to not putting breaks in.

As to the service manual, I have bought about a million over the years and always seem to have an issue that is poorly covered. Also, with this series of issues I just started off with the basics of diagnostics, a skill that is rapidly disappearing. My guess is much further diagnosis on this pump/security module will require MB's computer system. I will take a look at the manual and wiring diagram, but by back probing all the wires back there I'm not getting any trigger voltage in the 12V range, just less than 1V stuff, so I think I'm out of my league technology wise.

I do have an Ezsoft MB scanner and when I pretend to be an SLK it doesn't find a problem. (We also have an E350) I'm hopeful that drying things out and staying on top of those drains will prevent some of these issues going forward.

It's nice to have all of these features that modern cars offer, but it adds so many levels of complexity to repairs. As I type this a 53 Chevy just pulled up (I'm at MCDONALD'S waiting for Napa to open) with the old stovebolt and 3 on the tree, remember when you could fix just about anything with some baling wire and tape?

Thanks for any and all help, forums and shared experience is such a great help for those of us who try to keep cars on the road and away from dealerships!

 

The good old days !!!

 

Well, puller found, wiper arms off, cowl off and every single drain was plugged up, the two in the middle actually required some probing to get them flowing. Lots of time spent with the shop vac all over the engine compartment, we have two of those short needle pines and they were everywhere. Everything is flushed out and flowing like Niagara now. The flexible plastic ends on the cowl were both off, I cleaned them up and reattached with some 3M VHB tape, I'm guessing their absence wasn't helping the situation.

I bought a fan and put it in the floorboard of the right side, both windows down, 90 degrees today and no rain in the forecast, so hopefully I can get things dried out up there.

I'm going to dry the amp out and see if it'll work; it doesn't look like most electrical items that I have had that have spent time underwater and I'm thinking the intense humidity it was living in may have just provided enough condensation to bridge some stuff on the circuit board, causing the draw. Since it sits almost vertical with the connectors at the bottom, and they look good, it doesn't appear to have been inundated with water. Not much to lose in giving it a try I guess.

Yes, the good old days, remember when a fuse blew and you'd be seeing if anyone had a piece of gum to use the wrapper as a fix??? It was so simple back then and we didn't know how much we needed power door locks and theater dimming interior lights!

On to the next project while I round up a pump...Thanks

 

If you haven't already, good time to replace the cabin filter too . . .

 

Yep, cabin filter is on the way. Amp is sitting in the sun in a ziplock bag with a knee high with about 1 cup of rice in it. There is a pretty good amount of moisture in the bag, I plan on pulling it out of that bag once the sun stops cooking it and transfer it to another, we'll see how much water shows up in the next bag.

I was looking at pumps on ebay and noticed some for a CLK that looked just like mine except it had one more port. I checked my local U Pull It and they had a CLK so I went over and got it. Plugged it up and it worked, so I swapped the manifold from my original in to the CLK part and now, knock on wood, it's back up and working!

Thanks to all for you suggestions and I hope this exercise will help someone else on down the line.

 

I'm kind of surprised about that Central Locking module from a CLK working for you . . . Usually one has to replace that pump with one having the exact same part number . . . Maybe I learned something new today?? I'll stay tuned . . .

 

I started off looking to see if our E350 had a PSE in it that I could look at and see how they work and perhaps use for testing.

Everything inside the CLK part ooked the same, the only obvious difference I saw was the plastic manifold with the nipples on it. It slips right off and the solenoid that directs the flow was a plug in. So far, so good...

The extra nipple is marked Heck/KAF and what I found says it goes to rear headrests and boot lid. It appears that the tank line does both the gas lid and rear hatch on the Crossfire.

It may do something strange in the future but right now the interior light is working and the doors lock and unlock.

I was in the autoparts business with Italian cars for a number of years and found that often a major manufacturer has a basic item they make and just taylor it to work on different models. Look at all the cars that had GM Turbo 400's in them.

Looking at PSEs on ebay it appears that Hella uses the same basic design for a number of cars of that era, lots of late 90's/early 2000's cars show up with one that looks like ours.