I've had this truck for about a year and a half now, and I'm still not sure how the previous owners got it so messed up. Anyway, the power steering pump had been leaking since I got it so I finally decided to replace it over the weekend. That night I was driving and realized that the interior has no power getting to it. If the dash lights and radio are on, wipers and heater wont work. Onlytwo of those things can be on at a time. The heater will shut off the radio and they wipers just move really slow. Along with that, my water temp and oil pressure gauges are both reading either as high as they can, or close to it. I know the engine temp is fine because it's 20 degrees outside and I think the oil is good because it's running normally. If anyone has any suggestions for any of these issues it would be a lot of help.

 

Well...your engine can overheat no matter what the outside temperature if it looses the water pump or coolant.

But probably electrical. You need to trace the wires coming off the alternator and the battery to the firewall and see if there is a voltage drop there. If not, check for damaged/burnt wires at the firewall plug in. I've also had some ignition switches on the column get corroded and have a pretty large resistance through them. My old Ranchero did the same thing...it would die if I had the blower motor on high and hit the hi beams. I ended up running a new power wire from the battery to the ignition switch and replaced the switch.

Derek

 

Thanks so much. As it turns out i only had maybe 3 quarts of oil in the engine, and one of the negative battery cables was broken, which caused the electrical issues.