Electrical Gremlins - symptoms and how to fix
 

Do your wipers have a mind of their own?
Are your headlight, parking lights, dash lights, or you tail lights not turning off or flickering?
Does your horn stay on?
Car not turn off?

You may be a victim of the "Rain Gremlins" :lol:

Don't worry help is here. Heres what happened and what you need to fixt it
- Wire Cutters
- Wire Strippers
- Shrink Tubes
- A trusty Solder Gun
- Silicone (To seal the grommet DUH)

OK reach down by your left leg you'll see a drivers kick panel, take that off. Ok now you see a bunch of plugs in a big white bracket thingy. Well thats a junction linking Dash and column functions to the fuse panel under the hood.

That harness goes through a grommet in the inner fender out to the fuse block under the hood and What do you know? The seal is crap. So when it rains water gets through the grommet, runs down the harness, and seats it self nicely on the exposed pins in those previously mentioned connectors. No need to explain what water and electrical pins do. {thumbup} They get corroded and make for a hek of a flakey connection. Chances are you see a bunch of green corosion there huh.

So now you get to carefully one by one cut each wire on the front and back of the connectors and hard solder them all together.

Guess what you have no more electrical issues.

Don't forget to seal your grommets up with some silicone

If you end up with you SES (Airbag) light on. Which has happened to a couple of us, that circuit is part of the harness as well. You'll need to simply get it reset (Hint try a body shop they usually have a scanner to talk to the SES ECU Mitsu charges like 120 to hook it up)

Thanks scheides for the awesome pics

Here you can see where the harness comes through the inner fender and into the cabin of the car.
http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/...em_f2ecf8a.jpg

Connector notice the green that's corrosion baby
http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/...em_c8e75da.jpg

What you'll be left with once a connector is bypassed.
http://img18.picoodle.com/img/img18/...em_7b37412.jpg

I soldered all my connections but here is the same effect and will work just as well
http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/...em_bbebf50.jpg

Seal up those grommets pic of grommet from outside behind the fender lining
http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/...0m_93459fb.jpg

Below are a bunch of threads with the same issue. With some pics for you visual people :D

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=313115, https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=323568, https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=248587, https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=265344, https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=323096, https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...=1#post5255451, https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=323435
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...ater+corrosion
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=326088
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...05#post5609105
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=368107
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...de-sensor.html

I have helped many through this issue already and there is sure to be many more in time to come.



If any members have any questions or require more clarification please feel free to PM me
Thanks Admins and Mods

I know there was a problem just never saw the real answer yet. They need to sticky this.

Have you pm'd them. I will send this to charlesj.

what are some of the symptons of this happeneing? i have 53k miles on the evo so mine might be suffering from this. so far some of the weird problems that have occured:

dim dummy oil light that goes on and off randomly when it's raining/snowing outside
&
the 0-60mph gauge cluster bulb randomly goes on-off every few mins

Yup symptoms would include what you are seeing. This can effect any and all dash function. Check the connectors and hard solder them all together. Your problem will be solved. Make sure you seal up the grommit

if you are under warranty, take it to the dealership. they should replace the harnesses (2 of them) due to the fact the crash sensor wiring is in that particular harness

My gremlin was the door open light in instrument cluster. Had a water leak from improper windshield seal.Fixed the leak pulled rear carpet to dry everything up(rear passenger foot was filled submerging a wire harness) This was causing a short obviously.Havnt had a problem since.

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=326088

you can add mine to the list.

Before i took it in, it didn't start. The dealership got it started, but it wouldn't shut off like some of these other guys.

The 2 harnesses needed replacing. over 3k. Because of some issues with the dealership i ended up getting it done for much cheaper but that won't be the norm.

I'm actually going to print all these out and take them to one of the owners of my dealership and try to get Mitsu to own up to this serious problem.

I might be joining the club on these problems, see my thread.

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...ht=dash+gauges

Added Evo8's up

Blue we will find out what the culprit was to your if it is in fact the connectors we will add yours up as well

Added man thanks

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/

Thats the NHTSA official complaint website. I don't know how many seperate complaints they would need to "force" Mitsu to do a recall, but it's said if a pattern is shown something may be done..(quote from article):

"When enough reports are compiled, the NHTSA will begin to investigate the issue, and determine the root of the problem. Then, the findings are made public. If a manufacturer does not force a recall, the government, through the NHTSA, will initiate one instead."

So, all of you that are having this issue, please fill out the form. I just came across it and am about to do it. Site says it takes about 8-10 minutes to complete. Even if you've already taken care of it (yourself or had a shop repair) do it anyway, you can be reimbursed. Being that it affects a safety system (SRS), I'd think theres a high probability that something can get done.

Mods, maybe this can be made a sticky on its own so more people can see it?

great info, good to know

When you decide to seal everything up and clean your harnesses from the nasty green mold and corrosion, make sure you remove BOTH battery cables before unplugging the harnesses. Do not reconnect the battery cables until the all harnesses (connectors) have been cleaned and reconnected, otherwise you may risk an SRS light coming on especially if you turn the key on with one of the harnesses disconnected. Guess how i found out :) Resetting it will cost at least $60.



Here's a list of things that i had happening:
Radio and clock would not work sometimes.
Instrument lights and rear right taillight wouldn't work.
Wipers wouldn't work.
Windshield washer motor for the front wouldn't work.
And what did it in was: it would die if it was raining, when driving. Like every 2 minutes :lol:

It all was fixed by tugging on the harness wires every time one of those happened, but eventually i got sick of it and got in there and properly cleaned everything from mold. All works fine again now.

This is kinda of off topic but has everyone on evolutionm.net went to this site and complained about the fading clearcoat on our wings and the rust where our wings attach to the trunk? just thought i'd put that out there while i'll complain about my fading wing clearcoat. sorry for the off topic comment. if any one has done this or wants to get going on this let me know. hopefully i'm not in dreamland here.