Well, I found the wire that is supposed to be grounded when the decklid is open, I need it for my alarm system. But, the wire is grounded at all times! At first I thought the alarm was getting a ground from one of the other door or hood switches, causing it not to arm, but I checked all of them, and disconnected the trunk wire, and then the alarm worked fine (no faulty zones). So, I knew the problem then lied in the trunk ajar wiring. So, I removed the switch on the latch and checked it, and it works fine. I then disconnected the decklid wiring connector (C250 in diagram). On the side that goes to the rest of the car, there was still a short between ground and the green wire! Why is it doing this??

I took off all the heat sheilding and dismantled the wiring harness and traced the wire inside that, and all is well. No burns or pinches or anything. Wire is perfect. Inside, all the wires are contained within looms, and I havent done anything at all to them.

The last time I drove the car, the ajar light would not be on, so I know everything worked at one time. The problem is, is now the stupid green wire is always grounded, so the ajar light will always be on (and alarm will not work because it thinks the decklid is always open!)

Where do I look for a short now?!?

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AIM: Snowboarder0311
87 Coupe 5sp. - big resto in progress

Did the trunk ajar system work before or was it disconnected all along?

quote Originally posted by FieroJoe: Where do I look for a short now?!?

I would remove the ajar lamp, close the doors, hood and trunk, and try again...
If the short is still there, then I would suspect wiring...
But i think you will find something else...

I remembered that in your other post you said that you had the doors and hood already hooked up and you needed to hooked up the trunk. But why would you need to hook up the trunk separate unless previously you had hooked up to the interior light circuits. Therefore you might have now connected the interior lights circuit to the ajar curcuit which must remain separate. This might of caused the apparent short to the ajar circuit. I think the ajar circuit is more sensitive to ground than the interior lights circuit. If you orginally used the ajar circuit then there would of only needed to be one connection. Unconnect you other connections. Hope the schematic helped.

Good Luck

Thanks skitime, I was thinking about that today at work. When I was looking over your diagram I then realized that all 4 zones (doors, hood, trunk) have wires that will ground out at one location, terminal #10 on one of the connectors for the IP. The alarm provides two wires for negative trigger, one for the doors and one for hood/trunk. I think I'll go out right now and connect both of those to the green wire at the back of the IP. I hope this will work!

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AIM: Snowboarder0311
87 Coupe 5sp. - big resto in progress

You only need to connect one to the circuit. Leave the other one capped off. Before you make any more connections undo the ones you did to make sure the ajar circuit is ok. Then connect one wire to it.

Well, I did everything that i said that I would, but still did the same thing. I undid a bunch of wiring harnesses, looked over my helms book many times, and then decided to check out C500. it is the big connection block by the fuseable links next to the battery. I took it all apart, got a bunch of crap on my hands, and looked at the pinout of it in the book. Well, oddly enough, there are wires in C500 that go to the IP! They are even green too, just like the ones for the AJAR circuit. As it turns out, they are for the coolant idiot light sensor switch thingy. So, the switch will ground out when the temp reaches 230 (so says the book), and thus provide the ground for the idiot light to come on (12v + provided by gauges fuse).

So I pull the connector off the sensor, shut all the doors/hood/decklid, and there is no ground to the AJAR circuit. I open a door, and then there is ground, so it's working properly now! Hook it up to alarm, works like it is supposed to, end of that.

Anyway, so I reconnect the coolant sensor, and then the AJAR circuit is always grounded. So, I think maybe the sensor is bad or something. Kinda wierd it works that way, because if the coolant reached 230, and the sensor then grounded out like it was supposed to, my idiot light for the coolant and the AJAR light would come on!

anyway, I now know the exact cause of the problem.

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AIM: Snowboarder0311
87 Coupe 5sp. - big resto in progress

Wow, you were lucky to find that. Good luck with the car send me a picture sometime. Where do you do your snowboarding?

I snowboard as much as I can when there is snow, and I actaully got out quite a bit this year, went to some cool places. This spring break (april 1-7) I am going to big sky, montana. I am pretty excited about that. Last year for spring break I went to Winter Park, CO. That was my first time in real mountains.

But back to the trunk thing. What really is wierd is that the coolant sensor should be in no way connected to the AJAR circuit. I will have to try everything with the actual IP cluster connected. Right now there is about nothing but wires in the interior. I'll be sure to post my findings, and a pic.