The last couple of days, after I've installed my starter, I've been driving around, and occasionally, the stereo would just shut off, but then after a second or two, go right back on. I thought nothing of it because it does that sometimes when the head unit gets too hot, except for one time, when everything went back on, the yellow "SECURITY" light in the dash lit up. It happened a couple of times after that, but that light didn't light up. This kinda made me think of a VATS malfunction, cause I have no other idea of what that light might mean.

So fast forward to today. I'm driving home, going over and overpass, and on the downside of the overpass, I let off the gas a bit to kinda coast down the other side. So as I'm coasting down, I notice that the stereo has gone dead. The engine is still running (power brakes and steering still work), but I look at my guages, and all of them are dead. No lights, no nothing. So I coast up to the next light which unfortunately is red, and I have to stop. Once I stopped, the engine totally died, and I was pretty much stuck. So now I try and see if it'll start again. I turn the key to the on position, and nothing happens. No lights, no fuel pump, no nothing. Starter solenoid doesn't even click, there is absolutely no power whatsoever. So I chilled on the side of the road for 20 minutes, had a Sheriff sit behind me for like 5 minutes before the tow truck got there, and had it towed home.

What I'm planning on doing is taking the battery and alternator to Kragen to have them checked out, and check the fusible link by the battery myself. When the car was up on the truck, I looked at the starter underneath, and all the electrical connections there were fine. No nuts had fallen off or anything, so those connections seem ok. I've been suspecting my alternator for awhile though, so I'll put money on the fact that my alternator went to ****, and killed my battery in the process. If any other suggestions come up, I'd love to hear them.

As it sits now, the battery checks out at 12.5 Volts, and the alternator in the high 14 Volt range. I've looked around the area of the battery, and all the cables look alright, and I don't see any blown fusible links, from what I can tell at least. I'm about to check the connections and some of the wiring on the starter, but I wanted to see if anybody here had any input for this little problem.

 

There's a fusible link off the starter wires also. You have to follow them up a liitle, but there down there where the starter is.

Are you sure the bat cable isn't touching anything expect the solenoid post. Double check that the main fuse box power wire off the solenoid isn't grounding either. It's easy to cause those wires to rotate while tighting. It's also easy to burn one with the exhaust. So you need to check all away around those wires. You might also have to run an ohms check to see if one broke, cause of the short.

I think you will only get in trouble with the alt. if it's cranks out over 18volts, so 14v looks exceptable.

Jegs or Summit offers a cool little deal that pops on the solenoid, and keeps the wires neat. It's basicly is a quick release for the starter wires.

Ron