I used standard ring terminal connectors soldered on the the wire. I checked the voltage of the original charging wire going to the fuse box from the battery and everything looked good there. I am taking it to the dealership on Wednesday to get it diagnosed. I'm just afraid what they will say. I just had the tranny rebuilt and the water pump swapped and that cost a ton. Now it's 120 just to have them tell me whats wrong but i don't want to just throw parts at it. The code is u1411 which I think is because the cluster dies and the gas gauge goes down in a hurry when it does.

 

So, shot in the dark here, but is there a chance you knocked a wire or connector out of place (specifically a ground wire) while you were dynamatting the truck?
Think about all the places you had your hands and look for any connectors or wires.
Just a thought before you pay the dealer to hook up a scanner.

 

So when I did the big three I did alt positive to battery positive, Negative battery to chassis, and negative battery to alternator bolt for engine ground. Should I also upgrade the run from the alternator positive to the fuse-box and then from fuse-box to battery positive? Is that cable feeding the fusebox or is it just a go through to the battery positive?

 

That battery light coming on first really catches my eye. Wonder if that alternator could be dropping out then charging again?

 

why did you do the alternator bolt to negative battery? wouldn't it make better sense to do engine ground to chassis, then chassis ground to battery negative?

I say this because the chassis is used to ground out alot of things. could be that the body ground to chassis ground is not transferring correctly, the battery and alternator are grounding too well to one another which is causing the gauges to not get good ground. First it gives the battery error, thinking that there is a battery/charging issue, then it goes dead.

could also be the body ground to chassis ground. do you notice anything else dropping power? like the stereo or climate controls?

When i was looking to do the big 3 on my dakota, it was actually like 5 different cables. battery to fuse box, alternator positive to battery, body ground to chassis ground, engine ground to chassis ground and chassis ground to battery negative.

i'm looking to do the same on my Sorento but not sure if i should as some of the cables already look like they are 4 gauge. and it's too cold and full of snow for me to look at it now. i was looking to do my own conversion this spring.

doing the big three (or 5 in my case) for me is not for a stereo. It's for the efficiency of the vehicle. if the alternator doesn't have to work as hard, it has less parasitic drain from the engine, therefore the engine is more efficient which means better fuel economy. This was the same reason i was looking to do this on my dakota.

 

I have seen mutilple big three tutorials state go to the alternator bolt for the engine ground as that is how the alternator is grounded to the engine block.

I don't disagree that that could be the culprit though. I just dropped it off at the dealership so I guess I will se what the deal is. The only thing that does not make sense to me is if it was due to the big three upgrade I would have had something go wrong sooner.

I did that upgrade about 3 weeks ago. I did not have any dash lights until I did the dynamat (airbag) and then it was a week later when everything went haywire.

I guess over time it could have caused the issues. Thanks for the replies guys. I appreciate the input.

 

I Do think I will do the battery to fuse box though when I get the truck back

 

So the dealership called and said that when they unplug the module under the passenger seat the problem stops. The only downside is the passenger airbag wont work. I told them to leave it like that instead of getting torn apart by the cost of repair/replacement by the dealership. Everything is working perfectly now So I will look into a new module or research the problem further. I would have never pulled the seats if i knew about this stuff. Thanks guys.

 

cased on this, i would have to point to something shorting out causing the electrical system to go haywire and cause the dash to loose power. it's a good thing to keep it unplugged for the time being as whatever is causing this to happen from the passenger seat module could cause it to heat up and cause a fire.

 

Yeah I am good without it for now and when I drive with my wife I will just have her hold a bundle of balloons or something for me. On a side note my rear wheel cylinder blew out on me on the way to work today and my brakes went to the floor. Luckily I work for a construction company that has a few mechanics on hand so they are going to fix it for me. One thing after another. Just had the tranny rebuilt and swapped the water pump like two months ago.