Electrical trouble?

[carpenter_jai]

Hi Metroheads,

Its the first day of fall and the car that I swore I'd retire at the end of summer has retired itself, lol. Over the last week, the car (95 3 cyl hatch) was having electrical glitches. I would be driving along and press the brake, or use the signal light or some other normal thing and for a moment the radio (and other things too I suppose but didn't notice) would stop working for a moment. It happened for too short a time for me to hear if the engine stopped firing.

Today, after a very short trip I parked for a few minutes then tried starting. It turned over and started briefly but then the radio stopped working and it stalled. I checked fuses. The only one that was bad was the radiator 30A under the hood. I tried to check engine diagnostic for codes, but that didn't work. The instrument lights do come on with the key in the on position, but thats about the only electrical that seem to work now. Checked for loose or corroded wires under hood and under steering column. I figured if that was the problem then wiggling a loose wire would at least get the radio to go, but nothing I tried got it to work again. Pushed it home and starting to take things apart.

I am mediocre at best when it comes to finding electrical problems, but once found I have had good luck fixing them. Please offer any ideas for what to look for.

Thanks in advance!

Jai

[doug2060]

Thats odd. I had someone tell me their Metro (also 95) was doing something similar. Then the wiring harness burned up. Don't know what caused it.

[brivers]

I had a similar problem with my 89 except it went completely dead electically. The problem was the main power going to the fuse box under the hood. It was a slide blade connector that was over stressed (heat wise) and lost its connection. It was located coming in from the underside front of the fuse box.

[Woodie83]

Sounds like a bad ground to me.

[carpenter_jai]

I pulled the fuse box and had a look under it. Could not find any of the problems mentioned here though I was expecting to find something there. I wonder if its a computer problem. It doesn't matter now cause I've dedcided to retire the car due to its other many problems. Thanks for the advice, I'll be here still while I rebuild my 96's engine.

Cheers,

Jai