Engine quitting glitch sloved!
04-07-2011, 05:45 PM
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Location: Ft. Worth, TX
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Car: '86 TPI T/A, 90 Firebird 3.1L
Engine: 3.1, 5.0 TPI
Transmission: 700R4
Axle/Gears: 3.23
Engine quitting glitch sloved!
Well folks, I just solved a weird one...
1990 Firebird, 3.1L, auto trans.
Engine would quit sometimes for just a
split second, other times I'd be coasting.
It seemed to do this alot when I hit a bump,
but it wasn't all the time.
As it was getting much worse, I dug into
the situation.
ECM ok, battery ok, alternator ok, fuel pump ok,
etc... (see, I've been reading)
One thing I did find was a very poor repair to
the alternator output wire, which had evidence of
making contact with ground, it had an exposed
bare section. Fixed, but not the real culprit.
It wasn't until I was sitting in the car, parked,
that I got a good clue. I had it running and was
shifting in and out of park and reverse gently
to simulate a bump. In the process of this I also
released the parking brake and it quit.
After restart, and while ONLY releasing and
applying the parking brake several times, I could
induce the failure! It would quit 75% of the time
just by releasing the parking brake.
When it would quit, the volts would take a nose
dive - telling me it was a power feed problem.
Ok, now the car also had a very minor problem
with the power windows sometimes not working, but
it was very intermittant.
Since the parking brake lever was obviously
screaming out a huge clue, looking below the console
was in order!
As I lifted the top center section of the console,
the culprit popped out at me.
One of the power feed wires to a window switch
was rubbed, exposed and had been shorting out.
The power for the windows is good sized drawing
circuit and is ALWAYS hot in run.
The exposed section was nailing the whole cars
system with a direct. big 'ol short to ground!
Car runs and works perfect now.
Joe
1990 Firebird, 3.1L, auto trans.
Engine would quit sometimes for just a
split second, other times I'd be coasting.
It seemed to do this alot when I hit a bump,
but it wasn't all the time.
As it was getting much worse, I dug into
the situation.
ECM ok, battery ok, alternator ok, fuel pump ok,
etc... (see, I've been reading)
One thing I did find was a very poor repair to
the alternator output wire, which had evidence of
making contact with ground, it had an exposed
bare section. Fixed, but not the real culprit.
It wasn't until I was sitting in the car, parked,
that I got a good clue. I had it running and was
shifting in and out of park and reverse gently
to simulate a bump. In the process of this I also
released the parking brake and it quit.
After restart, and while ONLY releasing and
applying the parking brake several times, I could
induce the failure! It would quit 75% of the time
just by releasing the parking brake.
When it would quit, the volts would take a nose
dive - telling me it was a power feed problem.
Ok, now the car also had a very minor problem
with the power windows sometimes not working, but
it was very intermittant.
Since the parking brake lever was obviously
screaming out a huge clue, looking below the console
was in order!
As I lifted the top center section of the console,
the culprit popped out at me.
One of the power feed wires to a window switch
was rubbed, exposed and had been shorting out.
The power for the windows is good sized drawing
circuit and is ALWAYS hot in run.
The exposed section was nailing the whole cars
system with a direct. big 'ol short to ground!
Car runs and works perfect now.
Joe
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