Dodge Caliber Wiring Diagram

[Judd Eisenhauer]

Heres my issue: I interrupted the engine's power from the battery. Hooked up this way, the engine continues to run when I switch it to off (but the car wont start in the off position). What am I missing? is their something telling the alternator to keep the engine going even without battery power?

The car can get 12v from either the battery or the spinning alternator. As long as the alternator is spinning fast enough to disable the alternator/charge warning light on the circuit, then it is spinning enough to provide 12v power to your car. Sorta like how you can push start a car with a dead battery. There are multiple ways to tackle this. I'll let you either search the site to find it or let those with more intellect explain the methods. I'm not equipped to discuss electrical stuff with any more authority than I just have.

The key to your issue is the 'Z or 2' connection (I'll call it Z). You need to find a circuit in your car that, when interrupted, immediately kills the engine when it is running. To find this on my car, I started the car and went to the fuse box and started pulling fuses one at a time until I found one that killed the engine. I then wired that circuit up through the Z connection on the kill switch.

If you can't find a circuit that kills the engine with my fuse pulling method, then you need to break out the wiring diagram for the car and find something there. Some people have suggested that interrupting the fuel pump may be a good option here, but most cars will continue to run for a few moments after pulling the fuel pump circuit, so that might not pass tech.

Also be sure that all power goes through the switch. Meaning that a cable should run from your battery positive to the switch, and nothing else should be connected to battery positive or draw any power from the cable running from the battery to the switch. All power to the car should be connected somewhere on the other side of the switch from the battery.

The simple way I do it is to route the battery positive and the alternator output (big wire out of alternator) to one side/pole of the switch and everything else on the other side/pole. You will get 27,000 different explanations as to how to do it but this one works, is simple and is Lemons head of tech approved (and the way he does it).

FWIW, those smaller poles are to dump the alternator output so that it doesn't smoke the alternator when it's output suddenly has nowhere to go. By putting the alternator output on the same pole as the battery, it's allowed to continue dumping output into the battery until it stops spinning. And yes your car is still running because the alternator is continuing to feed it's output into the car's system. That's how you can do a hillbilly battery charge by removing your car's battery while it's running and replacing it with a dead battery that needs charging. Essentially you've wired it so that switching it off is no different than removing the battery while it's running.

As others have said, you must do more than just disconnect the battery via the main part of the kill switch (large lug terminals). If you choose the setup where the alternator isn't interrupted, then you must use one of the smaller switches (Switch "Z") to interrupt the 12V wire going to the fuel pump/coil/ecu, etc.

If you choose the setup where you tie the battery and alternator on the same side of the main kill switch, then that will be enough since you have eliminated all sources of 12V to the fuel pump/coil/ecu. This also eliminates any potential of damaging the rectifier diodes in the alternator, as the alternator never becomes disconnected from the battery (see the discussion about load dump). All good things. The only downside of this approach is that the 12V from the battery is always present on the alternator wiring. For our car, which has the battery in the trunk and the alternator in the front, that means the always-hot, heavy gauge, 12V wire runs the full length of the car. If that wire is pinched during a crash, there is no way to turn off that short circuit condition. Our alternator hangs off the nose of the engine, and is located in a low, vulnerable spot. A heavy front-end crash would very likely compromise that alternator output wire. Not a place and time that I want lots of sparks happening.

For our car, which has the battery in the trunk and the alternator in the front, that means the always-hot, heavy gauge, 12V wire runs the full length of the car. If that wire is pinched during a crash, there is no way to turn off that short circuit condition. Our alternator hangs off the nose of the engine, and is located in a low, vulnerable spot. A heavy front-end crash would very likely compromise that alternator output wire. Not a place and time that I want lots of sparks happening.

We put in a cutoff on the battery positive so that we have a way to completely kill the electrical wire leading to the main kill switch, but I guess if the car is on fire then we will not be able to use it in practice.

With all of that said and done, I have only two other beliefs as to what could be causing charging system issues.

1. That the new belt for bypassing the compressor is not appropriately fitted or

2. There is something going wrong with the wiring between the alternator and battery.

Start with the simple things..

Inspect all the main power and grounds.

Make sure all connections are clean and tight.

Inspect all the cables for corrosion and breaks.

Beyond that check all the fuses and fusible links under the hood and inside the cabin.

Thank you for the replies. I will discuss it with my husband tomorrow. I greatly appreciate the diagram as well.

My car is 2.0L sxt I do believe.

We have done some testing before on connections, but we will go back over it all in case we missed something. I feel like we had to have.

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