Here's a big one for yuh.

[DickWells]

Hope this doesn't get too long-winded, but here goes.

*First issue: New brakes, all around, late last Summer. Home-style bleeding, with no issues. Towed all the way to Texas, last Fall, and back, this Spring. No braking issues, but, the check brake system light came on several times over that period. Shut off, restart, and go on my merry way. --- Son borrows truck to tow old Avion TT to eastern NY and back, some month or so ago. Coming back down to Lake Champlain on long downhill, coming home, nearly lost it, with no lock-up in lower gears in tow-haul, and brakes fading! SES light on and service brakes flashing. Cool-down saw return to braking and normal transmission action.

*Three weeks ago: Getting ready for new paint at Maaco. Let some water down inside of driver's window. Driver's window stopped working. Checked fuses and circuit breaker. All okay. Took out driver's door switch panel/module. Took a chance and separated plastic panels. One conductor under neoprene (or whatever it is) button/contact diaphragm thingy showed some black, so I thought that I'd fried it. Cleaned it off with a really easy application of a soft eraser and then checked the conductor with a VOM. Good conductivity. Re-assembled. Now, ----- no window action, no mirror action, no lock action, AND, the dang seat heat won't shut off! Other 3 doors will lock with DL button on passenger side button. Radio won't turn off when I open the DS door with key out, but open any of other 3, and it turns off. So, the DS control panel isn't "talking" to the body control module, but the PS door seems to be working normally.

Here's where I'm at, at the moment. Got the truck back from Maaco, and it looks like a brand new truck. I had removed almost everything, to allow them to do a better job, and they seem to have done so. I stopped by the local GM dealer, this afternoon, and I'm due to drop it off next Tuesday, AM. Talked to their guy about these issues, as well as the old, on-going AC issue, talked about in these pages, earlier. So, is there any chance that I can resolve this DS door issue by the time I get with the dealer? Or, am I just looking at throwing money at it? I have the Helm manuals, but they're so involved for someone without a Tech II, that I can't make much headway. And, by the way, there were no codes set, when I took it in to Maaco, about 8 days ago.

Looking at the brake issue as being a safety thing, and hoping that the dealer can get the brakes and transmission talking to the control modules. That's top priority for starters. I've checked the DS 25 amp circuit breaker, and it's good, as is the DDM fuse in the left side of dash.I haven't gotten into the Center Instrument Panel fuse block.

How much chance is there that the DD control module is so sensitive that I buggered it up with my analogue VOM set on Rx1? I'm 99.9% sure that I didn't re-assemble it wrong. I've only gone far enough into it to know that I have 12 V going in on the large orange conductor to the DD (driver's door) control panel, though there was one other (smaller gauge) orange wire that had very low, or no, voltage going to it, with the ignition switch on in both cases,BTW.

Well, that's where I'm at. Any hope, or suggestions? Sorry for the long discourse, but I wanted to give as much info as I could.

Thanks for any and all, as always, guys and gals.
DW

[rapidoxidationman]

I know that somebody will be along sooner than later and mention "check your grounds" so it might as well be me. I'd pay close attention to the grounds that are exposed to the salty roads of Winter Vermont, and double close attention to grounds on the transmission and firewall.

That's a lot of gremlins at once for it not to be a ground issue.

Any chance you got any air - even tiny bubbles - into the brake lines?

Good luck and let us know what you find out either yourself or via the dealer.

[DickWells]

You're right, of course, about grounds, but this truck has never been anywhere near the North East in Winter. Don't think there's a speck of rust on it, anywhere. Nevertheless, oxidation could sure take place; witness the one little black conductor on the printed circuit board that I mentioned. The trouble that I have with this whole driver's door thing, is that it happened all at once, coincidental with dummy, here, letting water down over the arm rest. That, of course, was just the start, because I took the dang thing apart to check things out, after checking the circuit breaker and fuses. Probably my own worst enemy, as usual.
By the way, I've disconnected both batteries, and touched the + - leads ---- Three Times!, and left them disconnected overnight, once.
Gotta be getting some connection from that control panel, at least one way, because the seat heat stays on constantly (the trip back to home from Burlington was just toasty on my kidneys, I'll tell yuh!), plus, when I unlock the driver's door with my key, and open it, I get a ding, ding chime, every time, even though I can't set any commands from that panel. I can unlock the other three doors by pressing the door lock button twice, and I get the chime and horn signal, too. All this leads me to think that it would sure be nice if I could recover by just putting a new DD control panel in there, ----- but?
Is this good information to anyone, or am I just confusing the issue?
Thanks for listening.

[More Power]

With all the episodes of warning lights on the dash, there must be a series of trouble codes stored in the computer. Have the tech look in the "history" for recent trouble codes. History codes will stay there for at least 40 consecutive ignition cycles without a repeat of the problem. I'd start the process of troubleshooting there. Let us know what codes you're seeing. Jim

[DickWells]

Thanks, Jim. I've always assumed that my code reader on my Hypertech programer would give me all codes. For instance, every time, over the years, that I had a skip, or other issue, however brief, I always had at least one, maybe up to 4 codes set. In the case of a failure to shift up, I had to pull over and check and delete codes in order to get proper shifting back. Now, in this current situation, there are no codes set. Does this mean that my Hypertech reader will only read driveline, or power related codes?

[Kennedy]

The Tech 2 can almost always "dig deeper" to find codes that the generic units can't. The generic units have a lot of features, but do none exceptionally well.

[DickWells]

Well, the inevitable trip to the dealership, and a resolve to just throw money at it and get it over with, got results; up to a point. Cheapest thing was the HVAC re-calibration; for which there was no charge, probably because they were checking for codes, and it only took a couple of key strokes. The brakes had a DTC set, and that was taken care of for ~$40. No body DTC's were set, but they had to put in a new driver's door control module ($197), which cured everything but the seat heat issue. Out the door with a minus $424 from my wallet. The seat heat switch appears to be bad, and needed to be ordered (~$160). I declined, at first, then did a re-think, and gave them the go-ahead. My reasoning is that the dang truck is as good as a new one for my purposes, and if I can keep it that way for one or two car payments a year, equivalent, then why not have it kept up to snuff? Seems nice to have my windows working again. The HVAC re-cal is fine, at the moment, but only a long spell of seat time will tell for sure if it's cured.

Thanks for the listening and the advice.

[a5150nut]

Dick,

That warm fuzzy feeling you get when things "just work right" is well worth a few $$ of prevention!

[DickWells]

Yes, indeed! AND, to top it off, I went out this morning to bring the truck in again and put it up on the lift (still re-assembling, after taking all the plastic off for the re-paint at Maaco), and, after I fired it up, and while waiting for the air suspension to pump up, I just had to reach over to the left and try the seat heat button. Voila! It came on and works, and I recycled it about 4 times and it seems to work fine. Only works with the engine running. Don't know if it ever worked by just turning the ignition switch on, but it won't work that way now, and I don't care; long as it continues to work. Called the dealer and explained and they pretty much had to agree that there's no sense in fixing it if it's not busted.