94 D1: Constant buzzer while in gear

[dave]

I went out to move the Disco (had not driven it in about a week) and it started right up and seemed OK, but when I pressed in the thumb button on the shifter and removed it from park the 'ding' in the 'ding dong' that sounds when you turn on the ignition started to sound constantly while lighting up the light around the ignition cylinder at the same time. No codes are shown on the LED diagnostic display, runs fine...no idea what is up. I made a short video with my phone to show the issue. It was dark and you cant see much other than the dash lights and the sound. In the video when the sound is being made I either moved the shifter from park or was just holding the thumb button in. I am going to take a closer look at it tomorrow....any ideas?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6511963/video-2010-05-02-21-48-16.3gp

 

[dave]

I decided I could not wait until tomorrow to look into this so I went out and peeked around. What I found was a pretty good sized ant colony inhabiting the area behind the drivers side kick panel. This time of year we get hammered by ants and I had a colony invade a UPS for one of my servers and ruin it so I suspect they are causing a similar situation in the Disco. Lil fsckers. I have some professional ant control bait so I will deploy a bait station near the colony and wipe them out and go from there. :banghead:

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Fipronil is what I used - after some research I found that is what Terminix uses in their treatment. The ants take it back to the nest and it kills the colony that way. You can buy it in Walmart, KMart, etc as Combat (in 6" long syringes).

Though, in your situation, I'd probably just suck them out with a vacuum and then spray it with a little insect killer.

 

[dave]

In general anything you can purchase retail is not really the best stuff, you want to use something with cypermethrin for a spray (like Demon Max) or disodium octaborate tetrahydrate for a bait but some professional baits do use fipronil. Its highly effective against some species but it kills these guys too quickly and only kills the foraging ants. I have learned that with ants you need to ID the enemy and choose your weapon accordingly. We had this same species of ant in our home and the fipronil baits killed too quick so I am using some liquid d.o.t. bait on them. I hesitate to spray them and try to clean them out since they might just relocate, but if a few days of the bait does not knock them down I'll bust out a strong emulsion of cypermethrin and pull out the shop-vac. If that don't work its NATO 5.56 or .45ACP ;-)

I have both total hate and pure respect for those little bastards. A very tough foe for sure once they reach large numbers.

 

[dave]

Well, went and checked in on the bait and the ants had quit having interest in it so I removed the panel and pulled up the surrounding carpet let them have some cypermethrin spray. I saw a few queens scamper about but no larva so I am not sure if I got 'em all, I guess I'll see.

Ant combat aside, anyone know what kind of short the ants could cause that would trigger this behavior? To make it even more interesting I noticed that if the car is powered on and in park, pushing on any of the window switches triggers the same buzzer and ignition cylinder light issue. Anyone know what the ants could have done that caused that condition? At first I thought it would be a relay but with the window switches in the mix I am not so sure now.

 

[d1driver]

Move your CDL into lock and back and see if this makes a difference.

 

[dave]

I tore into the Disco earlier today and 'fixed' the problem...although I am not exactly sure what the cause really was. I suspect a relay was not working properly and after exercising it a bit it straightened out. Does not seem ant related, probably just a funky issue after not really driving the Disco much over the last year. It started to act properly after removing and reinstalling a few relays and removing and reconnecting the connector that goes to the little lock solenoid on the ignition switch. I am not very familiar with the details of the process that pressing the thumb button on the shifter initiates so I guess I'll need to dig into a wiring diagram to get some more info.