ISIS Power Diagnostics on the Ford F100 Panel Truck...

Okay Guys,

I'm putting the cart ahead of the horse a little here but I wanted to get this post out because it is timely.  We don't get to the diagnostic video in the series for a few more weeks, but this one was too good not to post. 

As you all know, we're in the the middle of our video series showing us install our ISIS Intelligent Multiplex System in our 1955 Ford F100 Panel Truck.  You can see the string of videos at our website at this link. 

The install job is finished but we're still producing and editing videos.  We cranked the truck with ISIS for the first time last week.  We spent the last few days buttoning up wiring and looming.  There is a little cruise night every other Tuesday night down the street from my house.  Check out and like their Facebook page here.  Their profile picture is the back-end of our F100. 

Anyway, I wanted to take the kids in the truck down the street tonight so I was working with the guys to get the truck ready to go.  I took it for a 45 minute drive this afternoon to ring out the system and check a few other changes that we made.  Everything ran fine. 

I brought it back to the office and asked the intern, who shall remain nameless, to button up some of the wiring for the horn circuit.  We were scrambling to get out of the office at the end of the day to get out.  I unlocked the truck with my iPhone and inTOUCH Mobile and went to crank it.  The starter engaged but there was no spark.  I was going to be late but was able to fix the problem in less than 5 minutes. 

The first thing that I did was to check that I had a heartbeat on all of the cells.  The truck has our 3-Cell Kit installed, one POWERECELL under the hood and one in the back.  The MASTERCELL is on the base of the shifter console.  I had a blinking com light on every cell so I knew that the network was communicating. 

The next thing that I did was to turn on messaging on the MASTERCELL by pressing the Scroll Up and Select buttons at the same time, holding them for one second and letting them go.  This will display all switch input changes on the inSIGHT LCD module.  When I turned the key for the ignition, I could see that the MASTERCELL was seeing the switch.  That part was okay.

The last thing that I did was to pop open the hood and check the diagnostic LED for the ignition output on the front POWERCELL.  It was glowing dimly so I knew that I didn't have continuity from the POWERCELL output through the ignition module to ground.  I first checked the fuse and found that it was okay.  Since I was only troubleshooting the length of wire from the POWERCELL to the ignition module to ground, I had about a 3 foot span to cover.  The ground looked good so I could rule that out. 

This ignition module came out of another car so it has a connector between the module on the fender and the distributor.  I wiggled this connector and could see that the diagnostic LED went out.  The intern-who-shall-remain-nameless must have leaned on this part of the harness, pulling the connector apart.  I popped it back in place, cranked the engine and I was off to pick up the kids.  All in less than 5 minutes. 

The diagnostic tools in the ISIS Intelligent Multiplex System pointed exactly where in the car I had my electrical problem.  What could have taken hours with a conventional electrical system, was fixed in less than 5 minutes. 

Sorry to run this out of sequence.  Watch for more updates. 

Jay