1999-2000 Ford F53 TSB 02-11-3 PCM ground harness

The harness that ford made to fix my problem is no longer available. I would need a mechanic who can fix the wiring without that part. The earlier post before mine described his procedure for that repair. I would need someone who can duplicate that repair.

It would be best if you could detail what you need...

I know I am a late comer to the topic of Ford TSB 2-11-3 but I am having same issue with my 2001 Pace Arrow Vision. I am a new subscriber to the forum and I am encouraged that some members have solved their issue despite Ford having discontinued the part ( ground jumper harness ). I too have had erratic shifting, stalling, and error code 0720. I need advice on how to proceed in fixing the issue

I hope this helps someone. I have a 2000 Winnebago with an F53 chassis. I replaced the engine battery a short time ago and when I took her on a short trip she threw a PCM trouble code P0720. She also started stalling whenever I backed out of my driveway (very uneven driveway). Of course I replaced the rear axle speed sensor which did not help.

To make the story short, there is a ground connection bar in the battery compartment under the stairs on the passenger side of the coach. It is a little hard to get to and it has four 3/8 holes with ground connections. Three are for the house and engine batteries and one is for what appears to be the ground wires that go to important components like the PCM. I removed ALL the battery cables, lengthened the ground PCM ground wires (which were too short and may have been pulled when the coach flexed) and replaced the ring terminals on the PCM ground wires with soldered (not crimp) terminals.

There is also a separate chassis ground stud near the ground bar with a single ground wire attached.

I sand-blasted the chassis ground connection bar to bare metal (where the 4 grounds attach to the chassis) and the lone ground stud and also sand-blasted the end of each battery cable and the positive stud in the battery compartment where all the positive cables connect. Essentially, I cleaned everything to metal that needs to conduct current to bare metal.

I have only driven the coach twice but there is no stalling and no trouble codes and no pending trouble codes.

The work takes 4 to 6 hours because the ground bar is not easy to get to and all batteries have to be removed. Be sure to make a wiring diagram before you start disconnecting things. And be sure to go to bare metal and tighten everything well. A small sand blaster is really essential because its very hard to get to the ground bar with a file or Dremel tool.

If you are willing to invest 6 hours you should try this before you start replacing expensive components because it costs almost nothing.

This procedure also fixed my sifting problems. My 2000 Pace Arrow would not down shift into first gear, while sitting at a light.

Glad you got it fixed!

First off I know this reply is the same as talking to myself, but my success in this repair might help other 1999-2000 Ford F53 chassis owners who do a internet search for these error codes P0720 and P0500 . I have 1500 miles after the fix and no more error codes or shifting problems.

Ford had a ground harness update but it has been discontinued and is no longer available. I guess most of the chassis that suffered from these problems were repaired under warranty. My chassis started showing the shifting problems and speed sensor error codes intermittently at 13 years old and 60K miles.

The repair: I located the 7 ground wires on the main PCM connector as described in TSB-02-11-3 and cut them 6" from the connector. The wires coming from the connector were spliced to one conductor and terminated with a ring connector bolted to a clean ground on the firewall. The remaining cut wires that disappear into the wiring harness were taped back and abandoned.