93 Escort Suddenly Quit Running

[Fritz The Cat]

My 93 escort (1.9L SOHC, manual trans) quit running as I was driving down the street this evening. Here's the senario. Driving down the street, the lights go kind of dim. Turn on the brights, they come on to about the intesity of the normal low beam, turned the lights off then back on still dim, a very short time later the radio dies (head lights still dim) Turn off lights again, wait a few seconds and turn them back on, the head lights come on still dim and the radio turns back on. a few seconds later the radio dies again, turn off the head lights, wait, turn on the head lights, nothing, no lights, no radio.
Pull up to a red light. The radio is dead so I can hear the engine, it's idle'n nice and normal. Suddenly the engine dies. No sputter or anything just as if you had turned the ignition off. Turned the ignition switch off, and then back on, nothing, tried again, nothing, no hum, no click, no anything. Pull on the hazard lights. They don't work either.
Push car to nearest parking lot only to find out that not a single electrical light or device works in the entire car. Tried jumping the car with jumper cables, but no luck. It does not appear to make an electrical draw from the other car.

Where do I start looking for the problem?

[krazibimmer]

you probably have a bad alternator. the alternator probably not charging and completely drain the battery dead.

[jeffescortlx]

yep, alternator

[Fritz The Cat]

Found the problem. Previous owner had installed a car alarm, then disconnected it. He disconnected it by removing the power line, and just left the live power line hang free under the dash. The hot wire hit the dash, grounded out and drained the battery.