Signature 600 ISX Cummins engine brake calamity.

In this W900B (and I'm sure all in a certain model year ) there's just one single common ground wire that catches all the switches and functions such as cruise, etc. Stupid setup, but it's OEM so it is what it is.

I found my body ground was the culprit, with 5 ground wires on one stud. I shined that all up but in addition I found another OEM ground in the harness that was unused, so I tied the Jake actuator switch to that separate ground and solved the problem.

On your N-14, it's fairly similar. I'd do the same thing and just open the dash panel and use a jumper wire to the ground post on the on/off switch, and go to a good ground somewhere and see if it solves it.

 

Another thing to do is trace and check the harness from the bulkhead connector on the firewall to the ecm, and the ones to each head for damage. It's a matter of process of elimination, no two ways about it. You'll find it eventually.

 

I guess I didn't answer your question directly before. ..the body ground stud on these W900B's is on the firewall, just down under the driver's side wiper arm assembly.

 

Too bad I flunked mental telepathy in high school, and don't carry a laptop with Cummins software every day, or maybe I could have saw that coming.

Yes, you'd expect to have professional service and good techs for what you pay nowadays but it's all a crap shoot.

I gauge it by the past 35 years. Prior to ecm's, you lose your alternator and had a Cummins, you put the pump in manual and got to where you were going. Now if you don't plug into a data port for preliminary diagnosis, tell me then (what is it I'm missing? ) what's your method of troubleshooting?

Common sense has to come into play somewhere, but you still need that software and the right man to run it. That's the tricky part.

Yes I could have been beligerent in my request for reimbursement for the damage, but I have to fight for just about anything else on a daily basis, so once in a while I prefer the nice guy approach. They're doing more than I even expected. Answering my email was a big surprise to me.


Nowadays unless you're lucky enough and educated and wealthy enough to own your own laptop to monitor everything, you're pretty limited to what you can find out. Then beyond that, it may be time to break out the Fluke meter and start looking further. That's the part, unfortunately for me, that Cummins Atlantic failed to do.