oh goody...an electrical gremlin

[Tercel__jon]

Seams I picked up an electrical gremlin on my last trip.

Was just cruising along and all of a sudden lost ALL electrical power for a second. EVERYTHING died for a second. Engine, radio, lights, everything. Then came back on. Needless to say it scared the ever loving crap out of me so I pulled over to investigate. The wire going from the battery to the fuse box had somehow come loose from the battery cable clamp. Tightened it up and everything was fine.

Continue cruising along for about 40 miles. my passenger moves their foot and rips out the wire for the passenger front speaker, then re connects it. A minute or so later the radio starts cutting in and out. Not the screen...just the audio. As we were driving I handed him a screw driver and we proceeded to remove the radio assembly from the dash. When he set it in the floorboard it stopped cutting in and out and was FINE.

So fast forward to yesterday. I took every little taped up wire apart, cleaned and re-tapped them up. Put it back in the dash and then today drove 1/2 mile to where I took a hard right turn and the radio immediately cuts out and then starts to repeatedly cut in and out again.

After trouble shooting it all heres whats going on.

It only cuts in and out when your driving along and its in the dash.
Sometimes you can idle and it wont cut out when its in the dash.
If you cruise down the road and it starts cutting out, it will stop if you cut off the engine. ACC or RUN is fine as long as the engine isnt running.


Now heres the engine gremlin...
I was trying to see if the above issue was RPM related due to charging or whatnot and so I was holding it at 2500rpm. All of a sudden the motor cuts out and drops a few hundred rpms and then it recovers. It was wanting to do this in time with the radio cutting out, until the fan came on....than everything was fine cept for the radio.

Weird huh?

[Petros]

sounds like you have a bad/intermittent main power connection, or possibly bad ground connection.

Clean the battery terminals, and both ends of all of the ground straps. Check the connections at the battery cable ferrules as well, sometimes those can get corroded and have intermittent contact as well (or you might just replace the battery cables if they look questionable). Check the connections to the fuse box, and wiggle all of the fuses and fusible links to get better contact.

You might have the radio on when you wiggle the connections and fuses to see if any cause it to cut out.

Good luck.

[dlb]

i had a similar issue with the last project car. i found that the negative battery cable was touchy right at the battery clamp so i removed the clamp and found a ton of corrosion. trimmed the cable back to where it was clean and put the clamp back on, problem solved. so i would check there, as well as the other ground straps in the engine bay. i know there is one from the negative battery terminal to the frame by the driver side headlight, one at the back of the valve cover going to the firewall (i think), and another one down below near the driver side CV but i can't remember that one very clearly. i would remove each one from the frame and clean it up with emery cloth or sandpaper.

as for the stereo wire connections, i use butt splice connectors like the ones shown here:

http://www.wiringproducts.com/contents/ ... ctors.html

taped wires always come loose. the stereo in the same project car was all taped up and had some really weird stuff going on. i re-spliced all of the wire joints with butt splice connectors and lo and behold, it worked perfectly. that's the obvious, easiest, and cheapest fix for the stereo to rule out stereo wiring issues.

[Tercel__jon]

Alrighty than. Grounds and butt splice connectors it is for now. Whats weird is I just took my roommate for a run and its not doing it? It was fine. Odd...

[Tercel__jon]

Ok....cleaned what grounds I could find and used a butt splice on the ground wire for the radio.

It worked GREAT. Totally fine. Till I hit the AUX button for the MP3 player and it immediately started cutting in and out...

Ok...its two hours later and i just picked my mother up from work. It works fine till you get over a certain volume....so...back to grounds...and checking power wires and fuses again.

[dlb]

the stereo issue wouldn't cause the engine to cut out like it did though. did you look at the battery cables too?

you're working quick on this one, i like it!

[Tercel__jon]

Battery cables are tight and good but older.

Yeah I cant stand riding with no radio. lol. Plus Ive got a roommate pushing me to be productive which is a good thing.

Im pretty sure the motor cut out because the wire that goes to the fuse box was loose....as for it dieing for a few rpm Im not sure but now Im thinking I got some bad gas or moisture in the tank, it did sit for a week after all this started. Ill rule that out this friday when I get some more.

I found some more butt splices last night and Im going to re-do all the connections instead of just the ground like last night. In fact, Im going to run the power and ground straight to the battery to eliminate the harness.

I had to do this once before in my Ramcharger cause the radio didnt receive a full 12 volts. I ended up running a continuous duty solenoid off that low voltage wire so It would still come one with the key.

This is all provided I can find some wire around here.

[Tercel__jon]

Heres a little update...

I found there is absolutely no power going to the passenger rear speaker... so Im replacing the radio when I get money.

Also...I went to pick up momma again and it worked for a little bit on mp3. I guess it works till it warms up. Also we made an interesting discovery. We were idling at the turn around and of course the radio wasnt working. I hit the brake and it worked! It worked for as long as the brake was pushed far enough to turn the tail lights on. Than... after some trial and error we figured out it would work as long as I wasnt in gear, had the brake just slightly on, and rolling slower than 20mph.

Weird. Gonna get the multimeter on there when the sun dips down a bit and then ground the radio to the battery depending on what kind of voltage I get.

[Tercel__jon]

Hokay.....so....

Im not supposed to have 16.5 volts at the radio when its running am I?
Nor at the cigarette lighter, OR at the battery.

I think the voltage regulator is going out...is it?

[Petros]

perhaps. Should stay around 14-14.2 as I recall. Does the battery boil out electrolyte when charging? You can usually smell it. Might be why the radio is going out?

[Tercel__jon]

Oddly enough its not boiling out electrolyte...Drove all the way to raleigh and it was fine. Got a new junkyard external regulator and guess what? Radio is still cutting in and out. AND Still showing 16+ volts.

What are the odds that one is bad too? But putting out the SAME voltage as before?

I dont think the alternator would be the issue...


I pulled apart my old regulator and tested it per the FSM and some of it checks out....the other parts...no so much. I think cause it was so dirty. I cleaned the internals with a can of coke and then used some WD40 to clean all the coke off. The coke removed TONS of corrosion. Imma let it sit for a while and then Im gonna attempt to do the test again. Might run up to autozone if they can test it.

[Tercel__jon]

So after cleaning them BOTH up. Im still getting 16+ volts. Im really thinking the alternator is just producing too much power. Is that possible with an externally regulated alternator?

[splatterdog]

If there is a connection issue with the reg, it may not be seeing proper voltage and is overcompensating.

Weird things like this are often bad ground(s). Check them all. Batt to engine, engine and trans to body, and any others you can find. There is a two wire ground connector near the engine block ground below the oil filter that is bolted down with the neg batt cable. They can get crusty. These kind of problems are always fun. with electrical, I've spent a whole day finding the spot that needs 5 minutes of repair.

Google voltage drop test. That will 100% verify your battery cables. Check the fusible links at the pos batt terminal also.

Any sign of rodents?

[Tercel__jon]

No rodents at all. My engines too oily for them pesky things. I found exactly which wire your talking about and after cleaning the oil off, it was clean. Unhooked it, cleaned and reconnected.

Fusible links eh? I dont think I have any. I only have the wire going to the starter, the wire going to the fuse box, and the power wire for my tach. And thats all they are, are just wires.

[Tercel__jon]

Ok so get this....I pulled the alternator off to take it to town and guess what I found? The alternator is INTERNALLY regulated... Also...whoever put it on, decided they didnt like the factory alternator plug. The plug on the harness was cut off and replaced with 3 individual female spade connectors that were corroded as hell. Then, then they were plugged into the male spade terminals that were inside the alternators factory connector.

So Im ordering me a new alternator AND an internal regulator from rock auto so Ill have a backup if this ever happens again. Also....going back to my yard in raleigh and nabbing the correct factory plug off the harness and soldering it to mine.

GAH! and some people call themselves mechanics.

Almost forgot....I did take it to napa and the alternator failed. Hence the new one Im getting.

Thanks for all yalls help fellas.