Symptoms

Help! I don’t know what is wrong, my car has been shorting out lately and I cant figure it out just a second ago i thought i was going to die, lol. the first incident was when I got home from work and parked my car and turned key off and with in a Pico second J it the electrical system failed and the interior lights would not come on. So I had to reset the computer I had to disconnect the battery then it worked after I let it sit for a while and reconnected it. The second time I did it I was tiring to start it and made a funny screeching noise that only lasted a fraction of a sec, then had to reset my car again. The final last scary time was a sec ago, I just got finished breaking in my engine so I decided to floor it J it kinda amazed my how fast but when I got to the upper rpms I herd a screech and engine suddenly died, I was going decently fast no lights (was night) and no power stuff and was just cruising along without power stuff for a long time and when I almost rolled to a stop the power came back on and I finally stopped I tried to restart it I was in neutral because still moving a little and it died again so I when outside and disconnected my battery and reapplied it and it was good. What is causing this???? Recently my tac has been going nuts too. It is bouncing within 200 rpm of what it is really and I can’t find out what’s wrong with that too. I have checked all of the connections and stuff and there good. My hypothesis I that somehow something near the starter is touching something its not supposto to touch and that screeching noise kinda sounds like the starter trying to start when the engine is running so that could be a possibility. But I think it might be connected somehow to the TAC going crazy because it happened sometime near when the power loss. I have no clue what it really could be but I am going to check it out soon and look up near the starter, but why would a wire touch when I am not moving? I go over bumps and it does just fine?? I don’t know someone PLEASE help me, like most of the times anything will help even if you say something like pineapples really don’t grow off of trees

Thank you,

 

pineapples really don’t grow off of trees

 

FB,

I'd suggest that you start checking grounds in the engine compartment.

------------------
Later,
Vader
------------------
If you want to beat the World, it might reach up and pull you down...
Adobe Acrobat Reader

 

lol i did not noitced i had Symptoms on the top . ok, i will look at the grounds, any particular place? , i looked all around the battery and most of what i could see.
maybe it was a spark jump that killed it?? but it seems to be when it is under more than usuall stress when it happens starting, and flooring it, other than when it died turning off.
thanks
danny

[This message has been edited by firbird (edited October 26, 2001).]

 

Maybe a ground wire is a little lose so when its under stress ( a little twist or movement) is pulling ground wire away from what it is ground to???????

 

i dont think so because i can go over any kind of bump and the power does not fail it seem like it only fails under hevy condition, need to look for some bare wires or something about spark jump around the distributor and coil because the tac is going crazy so that might mean that its partially grounded?? and when its put under stress it grounds it and shorts out the computer and it shuts down , the tac seems to be messed up when it happens the tac is accurate 50 % of the time so sometimes its good and others it bad . so its any bodys guess i will look at it this afternoon soon as i get off work.

 

What's up with the screeching noise? Is it like a belt-screeching noise, like something, (possibly alternator) momentarily locking up?

------------------
91 Z28
Come see The Vicious...

 

thats a possibility, it it almost sound if the starter is tring to start?? i will have to look in to that but why would the alt suddenly stop? what could make it do that seems like if it did it would not move again.

 

ok i whent over every thing disconected and reconected the battery getting some of the crud off of it was not much and discondected and recondected the starter, i gave it a run i did not realy push it that hard in fear of what happened yesterday but it did not fail and the tac seemed to be ok. so sofar its good, but like always it going to pop up tomarow and i am going to crash or something
thanks guys

 

believe it or not sometimes a bad selenoid can cause some of the problems or all of the problems you are describing. the main feed from the bat, goes to the selenoid. if you have a bad ground or loose starter it could cause these problems. I have never heard of spark arcing knocking out headlights. your lights are tied to a hard switch and do not go through the onboard computer. since you just did a rebuild get in there and check every elec, conection. good luck!!

 

Mines got that problem too, but I think I know what it is. First problem was the stud going into the battery was too short, and would wiggle loose, and fall out D-OH when on the highway at night like you said! So I figure, hell this battery has posts! I'll just get the adapter, and I did, but I didn't put them on right away, following a plan in life my friends and I call "The Laziness Factor" I decided sicne this is a simple swap, I'll just do it the next time the stud falls out! And so one day it fell out, and I switched over to the post....only I had a hard time getting it to line up, I pulled on the battery, and put it in all sortsa positions, then finially pulled it all the way up....there's a little tray on the bottom of the battery, which fell off, frustrated, I just threw it in the car. Finially got the post on and drove off, the next day, I went to start it.....no go, pop the hood, wiggle the battery no problem. Get back out to the car same thing. This went on for a few days, eventually I figured out which direction the battery wanted to be pushed, and noticed I have something of a small ground near the battery, which was being stretched. I decided to calmly, pull the battery, insert that little tray, and put the battery back in, no problems since.....except that it threw the alternator/water pump belt, but that was unrelated
Corry

 

well i think its ok i have gone for 2 days and i tried flooing it again and it was good and never died. so hopefully it will last.
thanks guys again
danny