I've got a 1986 IROC 305 4bbl...and I seem to have picked up a weird glitch. Doesn't seem to be affecting performance, but it's kinda disturbing. It used to only happen if I turned the ignition on without starting the car, but now it happens when I'm idling.

What happens is I start hearing this weird clicking/whining sound coming from under my dash panel. The CHOKE light also flickers when it starts clicking. Usually once I get underway it'll stop, but when I'm idling, it'll start its clicking/whining again. Voltage indicator on the dashpanel also falls a little.

I've traced the noise to a little black box that clips under my dashboard to the right of the steering column, just under where the choke light is on the dash panel. I think it's also where the beeep comes from when the key's in and the door is open. It has a few relays or resistors or something sticking out of it. I dunno what in particular is causing the problem, may be something in tehre or maybe it's messed up somewhere else. Anyone have any ideas or had this happen to them before? Chilton wiring diagrams tell you WHAT, but they don't tell you WHERE, so I'm kinda stumped. Any help'd be appreciated. Thanks.

Mark

 

That black box is the buzzer and is located in the so called convenience center, which carry also the flashers (the two round box)
and the choke (yellow) and horn (green) relays.
It looks like a problem of poor connections. Disconnect the buzzer and relays and clean the pins. Then start the car whitout and hear for the noise. If it is still there you will need to look around for a bad ground connection(good luck). I f disappear turn off the car , put on the buzzer and start the car again. Do this for all the relays too and you'll find the bad one

 

A'ight, I pulled the black box, seems like there's one large relay at the top which controls the "door open" beep. Below that there's two more smaller, square ones, a white one on the left and a green one on the right, and below that on the left there's a litttle silver round one. Anyway, it's the green one that's buzzing, and my choke light flickers. What I wanted to know is, Can I just pull the green one out and drive without it? It doesn't seem to affect the engine now, but is it somehow tied to the choke so that if I pull it I'll have trouble starting cold? Or is it just a warning buzz?

Appreciate it.
Mark

 

That is the choke relay, you can drive the car without it and no further damage will happen but your choke will not working properly

 

OK...another question. My battery was dead this morning. The voltage gauge has been reading low for a couple days but I thought it was part of the same electrical glitch. I'm starting to think that the relay's fine, it's just being affected by some other short behind the dash panel. I have no idea how to find that. Any idea where to start looking? Are there certain things that have a tendency to short in these cars? Could that drain my battery, even when the ignition's off?

Also, do you think it's possible I have a bad battery? That relay used to click spastically when I first turned the ignition on but stopped when I got the engine running. Now it does it at idle. How long's the operational life for a battery? I've been on the same one for 2 1/2 years.

Thanks again,
Mark

 

If your car has carb try disconnect the choke solenoid wire on the carburetor, is on the passenger side.
I don't know about the battery life, but it depend from many factors. If you try a new one sure it wont hurt anyway