can't find problem with pulsar

[wind_dude]

I have many problems with my '88 1.6l, it's fuel injected. The head lights do not go down but the motors work fine. The radio flickers on and off, and the dash lights dim adn brighten.
The biggest problem is the car misteriously dies. It will be driving fine and shut down or sometimes will just not start. The battery dies all of the timee. When I tried to charge it today the polarity seemed to be reversed. One mechanic told me the fuel pump was shot so the got replaced and the computer tells me the crank angle sensor and one other sensor have errors but i have checked both and they seem fine.

[briano]

Hey Dude,
I've had some of the same problems with mine. For the headlights, I found that the dash switch was bad, after replacing it, the headlights retracted immediately.

My '89 would only die when it was hot out and I had the engine good and warmed up. Giving it a good tune-up did wonders for it. The biggest problem was probably just the air filter, but I also did plugs/wires/rotor. Yours might be quitting because of your electrical problems.

For the radio, you might check to make sure you have a good ground connection.

If you have an digital multi-meter, you can try to put it in series with one of your battery cables and see if there is current draw when everything is off (that you know of). If you see current draw you can start pulling fuses to see if you can get it to stop. If you have some serious current draw going, you might blow the fuse in your multimeter, I know mine has a 10A fuse in it.

I'd have your alternator tested just for the fun of it too.

I hope all that helps, electrical problems can be a bear!

Brian

[drphun]

Wild guess is that there is a bad ground some place.

[mnpulsar]

The first place to check would be to check the radio grounds (especialy if it is an aftermarket radio)- it is not unusual for people to groound to the wrong wire (which is actualy a light wire) thereby screwing up all kinds of things. It would be best to ground the radio directly to the frame somewhere. Headlight switches are also a common problem - I had to work on mine twice.