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43 Posts
Hi all,
A funny thing happened to me yesterday. As I was driving around and stopped at a stop sign, my car stalled. I started it back up and it did the same thing at the next stop sign. I hobbled on home and did some checking in the driveway. When it cut out, all electrical power seems to have been cut. I say this because the clock on my radio reset itself to 12:00 (and started flashing). Sometimes, as the car was idling in the driveway, just turning on the headlights would cause it to stall. (I say sometimes because it did not happen every time I turned on the headlights.) Something like this happened to the car a couple of years ago and I changed the ignition switch and the problem was solved although I don't think this is the same thing because my clock would not reset when that happened. (Am I right in thinking that since the radio clock is wired to an unswitched lead, it does not go through the ignition switch?)
At any rate, this morning, I cleaned my battery connections (there was a white crystalline buildup on the negative terminal). I also ditched the shut off switch I had installed on the negative terminal (the brass ones with the green knob that you unscrew to disconnect the battery). I haven't taken the car out for a spin yet to see if this solved the problem. Is there anything else I should be looking at?
Thanks in advance to all those who try to give me a hand,
Richard in the Great White North (where the temperature has been in the mid-nineties for almost a week)
A funny thing happened to me yesterday. As I was driving around and stopped at a stop sign, my car stalled. I started it back up and it did the same thing at the next stop sign. I hobbled on home and did some checking in the driveway. When it cut out, all electrical power seems to have been cut. I say this because the clock on my radio reset itself to 12:00 (and started flashing). Sometimes, as the car was idling in the driveway, just turning on the headlights would cause it to stall. (I say sometimes because it did not happen every time I turned on the headlights.) Something like this happened to the car a couple of years ago and I changed the ignition switch and the problem was solved although I don't think this is the same thing because my clock would not reset when that happened. (Am I right in thinking that since the radio clock is wired to an unswitched lead, it does not go through the ignition switch?)
At any rate, this morning, I cleaned my battery connections (there was a white crystalline buildup on the negative terminal). I also ditched the shut off switch I had installed on the negative terminal (the brass ones with the green knob that you unscrew to disconnect the battery). I haven't taken the car out for a spin yet to see if this solved the problem. Is there anything else I should be looking at?
Thanks in advance to all those who try to give me a hand,
Richard in the Great White North (where the temperature has been in the mid-nineties for almost a week)
