I need help with electrical problem

[Eugenius]

Hey all, Well I finally did it. I just bought my first bmw. I fell in love with bimmers when i drove my friends 95 M3 Lightweight in '98 and I knew I had to have one. 3 days ago I purchased an 89 535i 5 Speed with 115K mi. in excellent condition for an unbelievable $3200. When I checked out the car everything seemed to be in order except the instrument cluster in which only he tach and speedo seemed to work after about 15 seconds of the car being on. after checking some forums i thought i'd only have to change capasitors or at worst replace the cluster.

once i got the car home i tried to lock it and noticed that the central locking on the drivers side wasn't working. so I called by best friend down an E30 owner to help me and we decided to check the fuses. we found 2 extra wires with in-line fuses put on them going into the dash and when we touched them things started to run by themselves with the key off. The idle air control valve was running, a component of the smog system on the drivers side and on the pasenger side there's something running in a small black box that's just before the dash. Also on the instrument cluster the battery light stays on. I have to remove the battery cable when i park the car. I haven't done anything to the car so far except enjoy the hell out of it as these problems don't seem to interfere with driving (outside of not knowing how much gas I have, current temp, and other info) I am assuming there's a short somewhere but i dont even know where to start. any suggestions???

[Eugenius]

I decided to do a little troubleshooting this morning and I removed all of the fuses one at a time to see if any of the problems stopped. no luck. I removed the cover on the black box on the passenger side and found that it is the OBC and some other things. I narrowed the noise comming from it to a relay. I didn't hear the IACV this time. The battery light is still on so I checked the forums again and found out that the problem could be diodes on the alternator so i will have it checked out. (Thanks Bill R.) If any one else has any suggestions etc please let me know.

Thanks

Hey all, Well I finally did it. I just bought my first bmw. I fell in love with bimmers when i drove my friends 95 M3 Lightweight in '98 and I knew I had to have one. 3 days ago I purchased an 89 535i 5 Speed with 115K mi. in excellent condition for an unbelievable $3200. When I checked out the car everything seemed to be in order except the instrument cluster in which only he tach and speedo seemed to work after about 15 seconds of the car being on. after checking some forums i thought i'd only have to change capasitors or at worst replace the cluster.

once i got the car home i tried to lock it and noticed that the central locking on the drivers side wasn't working. so I called by best friend down an E30 owner to help me and we decided to check the fuses. we found 2 extra wires with in-line fuses put on them going into the dash and when we touched them things started to run by themselves with the key off. The idle air control valve was running, a component of the smog system on the drivers side and on the pasenger side there's something running in a small black box that's just before the dash. Also on the instrument cluster the battery light stays on. I have to remove the battery cable when i park the car. I haven't done anything to the car so far except enjoy the hell out of it as these problems don't seem to interfere with driving (outside of not knowing how much gas I have, current temp, and other info) I am assuming there's a short somewhere but i dont even know where to start. any suggestions???