So i made a post a few weeks ago about my car misfiring randomly, it was only maybe a 1/2 second to a second or so, found a bad ACT sensor and thought maybe i was good now. Well took the car out yesterday and it seemed to be running great again and after maybe 20 minutes of driving i pull out onto a nice stretch of road and punch it runs great and as soon as i grab 4th it more or less shuts off, starts misfiring, tach is going up and down rapidly like its having a heart attack then after 3-4 seconds it runs fine again like nothing happened. I have also installed a AFR gauge since the car started acting up since i didnt know if i had a ignition or fuel issues to begin with, anyway when it acted up i looked down at the AFR and it was rebooting so now i know its and electrical issue. The AFR is powered from a tapafuse in the fusebox so I'm loosing i would assume all power to the car (or at least the fusebox and ECM) when it does this but it comes right back on pretty rapidly and runs fine again? We hit the next U turn and decide to head home since the car might really die now since it never did it this long before usually it was 1/2 a second it would act up, there is this one bridge i go over and it has a pretty big dip on and off it, hit the first dip and the car misfires/dies again for 1/2 a second, runs fine going across the 200' bridge, hit the dip getting off the bridge car again misfires/dies for 1/2 a second then runs normal again the rest of the way home. All of this points to some random electrical loss in my mind that somehow is related to bumps or a jerking motion in the car.
So after doing some research i found the ignition switches on these are known to be bad, made sense to me with the symptoms i saw so i went after that, the switch had no play in the crimps, it was totally tight. Since i had it apart anyway and the switch was cheap i decided to take it apart, looked like new inside, no signs of any "sparking" on and off like a bad connection would have. Put in a new switch and while i haven't test drove it again yet i really doubt this is the issue since the switch looked like brand new inside and had zero play in the casting to plastic housing crimps, and there is only 14,000 miles on the car so the switch has not seen much use in reality.
I started looking over all the wiring by the starter solenoid after looking at the wiring diagram of the car since that is where everything happens and i was hoping to find something loose, rubbed through, ETC and everything looks good, all connections are tight and corrosion free (car has only seen rain once in its life) nothing looks burned up. looked at all the wiring around the steering column, again no signs of rubbing, or anything else abnormal. Had the wife get in the car and turned it to run (key on engine off) and started shaking, pulling, twisting alll the wiring i could by the left shock tower and nothing made the dash warning lights flicker on and off and the AFR guage stayed on without rebooting? What else is there that would kill power to the ECM and fusebox intermittently that i could look for next? I wish the thing would just totally die then i would be able to start chasing circuits to see where the power loss occurs and narrow this down.......
So after doing some research i found the ignition switches on these are known to be bad, made sense to me with the symptoms i saw so i went after that, the switch had no play in the crimps, it was totally tight. Since i had it apart anyway and the switch was cheap i decided to take it apart, looked like new inside, no signs of any "sparking" on and off like a bad connection would have. Put in a new switch and while i haven't test drove it again yet i really doubt this is the issue since the switch looked like brand new inside and had zero play in the casting to plastic housing crimps, and there is only 14,000 miles on the car so the switch has not seen much use in reality.
I started looking over all the wiring by the starter solenoid after looking at the wiring diagram of the car since that is where everything happens and i was hoping to find something loose, rubbed through, ETC and everything looks good, all connections are tight and corrosion free (car has only seen rain once in its life) nothing looks burned up. looked at all the wiring around the steering column, again no signs of rubbing, or anything else abnormal. Had the wife get in the car and turned it to run (key on engine off) and started shaking, pulling, twisting alll the wiring i could by the left shock tower and nothing made the dash warning lights flicker on and off and the AFR guage stayed on without rebooting? What else is there that would kill power to the ECM and fusebox intermittently that i could look for next? I wish the thing would just totally die then i would be able to start chasing circuits to see where the power loss occurs and narrow this down.......