I posted this also on the Excursion thread but thought it wouldn't hurt to post here as well.

Irecently had to have the pitman arm and gearbox replaced on my 01 Diesel Excursion. At the same time, the main battery was also going bad. Everything else on the truck worked fine. I was told they had to jump start my battery to test drive the truck after they fixed it.

I picked up my truck and realized that my stereo comes on, but no sound, my cruise control no longer works, my horn no longer works and the indicator light for the air bag will not turn off. I called the shop who worked on the truck and they claim they were never under the hood except to jump the truck and that they think the after market alarm needs to be reset because the battery went bad.

I knew the battery was going bad because I had to jump it one other time before and never had a problem with any of these things not working. Not sure how those four things are related to the alarm. I am wondering if they may have jumped it wrong and put the negative on the battery and did electrical damage.

Can jumping it incorrectly cause this type of damage? BTW the horn works fine when the alarm goes off.

 

First thing that comes to my mind since the 'steering box' was replaced is the clock spring/sliding contact behind the steering wheel.. It's a coiled ribbon typemulti circuit tape and is 'rotational sensitive', meaning if the steering wheel/shaft was spun or cranked while the box was removed they could have destroyed the sliding contact.. The horn, cruise, as well as the driver side air bag cicuits are through the sliding contact.. Although it doesn't explain the radio issue, since the radio control isn't in the wheel.. If all the functions were there prior to their work, I'd suspect some damage, or at least check there first.. The radio, cruise, horn, air bags don't share circuit protection as far as I know..

 

Thanks for the lead....I have a friend who is a certified Diesel Mechanic and he has offered to take a look at it for me. I will give him this information and see if he can verify this is indeed the problem.