Cthulhuania

Update page 3, still dead no power

*edit* Long story short no electrical power, if it does want to start it will go and keep going until I completely stop, and then it completely dies. New battery terminal clamps, needing suggestions on cheap fixes, barely any background with cars, this is a DD work commuter, need it up n running asap. Was told the battery and alternator are healthy, might be a lack of power through the negative although not sure where. Zero power at this point, nothing is working.
*edit*


Have TONS of trouble finding schematics, and diagrams for this make and model. Is there an under the hood fuse box I can check for an 80A? Read another post with similar troubles.

*Back story* Currently this car has been having new problems one after another every week. This week it is currently not running. Complete power failure.


Problem might have started with dimming headlights when my subs bass hits, (bought a capacitor haven't installed yet), highbeams + brakes dim the lights, and ultimate death was when I went to drop my lady off at her house, turned it all off helped unload the car and go inside, come back out notice my dome lights not on, key in ignition no ding, turn the key no startup lights no starter click, zero power.


My ladies aunts brother looked at the car tested the battery and alternator said they were ok. Let's assume he is right because the battery is expensive and alternator is $26 with a $20 core (god I love core). He said it is probably a battery terminal as one of mine was loose, replaced it, and my car fired right up. Headed home, my lady lives down a bumpy pot holey gravel rode and I got to the end, hit 0 MPH, my RPMs dropped to 0, lost all power and was like oh s*** cause it hasn't happened before and this was kind of downhill.. brakes barely work (fresh brake pads) when the car is off, had no idea.

It took a couple minutes for it to think the battery was ok and want to start back up. Got a few blocks down and was totally ramming around corners to keep it on and above the dead line. It died like a block from my house and hopefully is still parked (god forbid it gets towed) there just chilling... Wouldn't get power going again...



So whats the issue? I drive my lady to work everyday and were kinda f'd.

Checked the under dash fuse box previous owner kinda ghetto rigged a couple fuses with some speaker wire, no idea what its to, none of them looked blown out. Need to fix this DD asap, have a bit of money and a spare car (firing on half cylinders, not my car, not my problem) to get to autozone down the road.

5 speed 4 cyl money pit.

81cord

Does it try to crank at all at the moment? I'd check the basics obviously, battery terminals, grounds from the battery to the frame rail just under the battery and to the tranny. Remove them and CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN them! Theres a connector just by the alternator with six wires. This is what happened to mine:



Those two fatter wires are the main charging wire from the alt, which has corroded and as you can guess - doesnt charge my battery optimally. My suggestion would be get some 8 gauge wires and run them all the way from the alternator to the main fuse just near the battery. Provided that your alternator is healthy, I'm sure that should fix your problem. Or your main fuse is blown/corroded too, check that.

Cthulhuania

It doesn't crank at all.. Zero power no dome lights, no starter clicks, nothing. Kind of like trying to start the car with no battery.

I'm gonna try to figure out how to pop off the connections, steel wool/wire brush the chassis clean, and see if it fires, if not I will replace some ground wires.

Will check the alternator charger box thingy.. So the black negative main wire goes down and connects to this V shaped thingy which is mounted on the engine, then another wire off the other arm of the V curves down under the battery. This must be the ground area which I will be cleaning.

TODAY.. I will fix the issues!!!

2ndGenGuy

There is a big main fuse that comes right off the positive terminal on the battery. It's under a little plastic panel that is bolted to the inner fender right next to the battery. Your ENTIRE electrical system runs through that. They get old and weak and start doing all sorts of weird things. Mine was bad, but looked fine... Causes lots of weird, intermittent problems. I touched it one day and it turned into dust. You might wanna replace that. It's a cheap and easy thing to try.

It's part number 28 in this picture:

letank

after you check above fuse, the next is internally corroded battery cable... pull voltmeter, on volt.... should be less than 0.2 volt ... it is weird, but this is the best to test voltage loss on a cable... you are basically using the voltmeter battery as a power source.

Cthulhuania

Checked my ground cables and found a completely rusted to death ground to chasis cable.. Replaced that and used some Rust Dissolver pink goop for 10-20 mins, rinsed it, and installed the new cable. Added some Dialectrical goop to both ground spots, flipped on my dome light to see if there was power, dome light was on was like HOLY S*** YES! and I crawled into the driver seat cause my door is being a dick and won't unlock... stepped on the brake/clutch turned the key and nothing! Dome light was no longer turning on either.

I'll replace the fuse tomorrow. Your photo didn't load at all, but I assume it is the one from the positive terminal through the thinner wire on the right fender small little plastic cover pops off, reveals a long metal fuse looking bridge that screws on. Will change that one.

Could NOT locate the under engine fuse box for the life of me, and checked my alternator power box thingy looks ok, dirty as s*** but will consider that as another last cheap option.

Today was not my day!

edit: I'm also in the market now for a multimeter, what should I look for when buying one? Sick of playing cat and mouse with this car.

2ndGenGuy

Fixed the image for ya. Yes, that's the one you described. And, I am pretty sure there is no under-hood fuse box. That one fuse is all there is under the hood.

Cthulhuania

Awesome thanks! Will continue the work at 5.. gonna pull off the positive cables, and fuse. Hopefully this is my ultimate fix.

Cthulhuania

Changed number 28 Fusible Link.. nothing.. changed the fusible link positive wire + new positive cable and terminal combo.. nothing.. cleaned some more grounds + dialetric goop.. nothing..


Think I broke my Positive to starter screw thing.. its wiggling around now and goes in and out doesn't seem natural at all.. hope I didn't break my starter.. I just got it like 3 weeks ago.. fml


I bought a multimeter the Innova 3320, seemed a good bang for my buck at Autozone for 25.. driving me crazy not to be able to drive my sweet ride

81cord

This might sound dumb but have you checked your battery again? It could be drained for some reason.

Another place to check would be the underdash fusebox, look for the fat white cable - that should be your main power cable from the battery. It could be melted, disconnected or doing something funny. Put your new multimeter to a good use! Check if you're getting any voltage to that cable.

Cthulhuania

Battery was checked lastnight at Oreillys, and they even charged/topped it off.

Will check the fusebox soon.. having trouble unlocking/opening driver door so its hard to get to at the moment and my cars kinda on a slope so I cant drop the E-brake

Cthulhuania

All I want to do is get her to run...

81cord

Man that looks good. Wish that I live closer so I could take a look. I know their wiring even with my eyes closed pretty much D:

Edit: this might come handy

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/8765/6210b.jpg

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8719/6210a.jpg

Cthulhuania

Yeh Malaysia isn't close to me.

And wow.. that diagram just wow.. any tips on what I do with it? Multimeter the points? How would I go about doing the under dash fuses testing them? I got the Innova 3320 so it has a continuity check that beeps if there is a good current, just not sure about all the other settings besides 12v for battery check.

Poor car...

2ndGenGuy

Man, that car is boss. Dude you're in Oregon, we're having a Portland 3geez meet (1st 2nd and 3rd gen Accords) on Sept 29. You should bring her on by! You gotta get it running for the meet! It's gonna be rad... I'll be there with my 81!

http://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1102451

Back on topic...

We need to start over on this thing... So when was the VERY first time this happened to you? Did this all start happening after you replaced the starter? Maybe after you installed the stereo? What exactly happens when you try to start your car?

From what I can gather, you first turn the key on to the II position, and everything gets power? Then when you crank the starter, everything in the car cuts out? Then if you back the ignition completely off, then back to the II position, does the power come back on?

If that's what's going on, I am going to say that you either have a bad starter that is shorting out internally, or you still have a bad battery. I know they can "test" your battery, but that doesn't mean that it won't fail under heavy load.

Also, you need to check the engine to body grounds (can't remember if you said you did this). I left one of them off once, and when I cranked over the starter, my one remaining ground started smoking like crazy. It's really essential to have good grounds from the engine to the body. Take them off, clean the **** out of the contact points and put them back on. Use some of your big-gauge stereo wire to replace the crappy old ground wiring. I imagine that if the grounds from the starter/engine to the body are bad, it would cause a power cut like that.

Cthulhuania

Nah.. at the moment zero power.. put the key in, turn it all the way, nothing at all...

Starter was replaced WEEKS before it happened, car came with the stereo installed.

and it happened randomly.. no recent work on the car when it first died... It sat for about 2 nights and I replaced the negative battery terminal as suggested because the old one was loose, it fired right up and died at the end of the driveway when I completely stopped the car.

Key turning to no avail no power, couple minutes later it decided to fire back up and I ended up getting the car a couple blocks from my house (damn near drifting around corners to keep it from stopping/dying) Hit a stop sign and it died. Zero power, waited a few minutes zero power, waited a couple hours no power...

Cleaned Negative battery ground, replaced that cable, replaced positive cable, replaced the 55A fusible link battery fuse thing, cleaned front engine ground that kinda goes to lights.. couldnt find alternator ground or any other grounds for that matter.. not car savvy at all.

Would LOVE to bring my car to a meet.. just gotta get it going again..

81cord

Idk what else is missing, the only place that I would look is the main white power cable under the dash. Check if its getting power at all. Put your multimeter to 50V or whatever the setting is to check the voltage (test light work too), and test that white power cable I told you about with the positive lead connected to it while the black (ground) lead connected to the chassis and see if you're getting any power. If it doesn't then something is going on with either the main power cable OR the chassis ground.

Something else that you could do is to put the positive lead to the positive post on the battery while having the negative lead connected to any metal parts on the body.

Do them and let us know!

2ndGenGuy

Grounds... there should be one going from the negative battery terminal to the body, and from there to a bracket on the transmission. Also, there should be one from your valve cover to the upper radiator support. Are those all still there in tact? The stock ones are total ****, and probably are in need of replacing now. I see you replaced the terminal, which is good, but the wire probably needs to be replaced as well.

G. Man

Could this be an ignition switch issue? I had the same problem with a Dodge Dakota awhile back and it was the ignition switch. Just throwing it out there. Good luck

Cthulhuania

I replaced both power cables and terminals. Cleaned and Dialectric goo'd the ground locations, Yes on the valve cover/upper radiator was cleaned and goo'd. Will replace it soon but it looks totally fine..

Currently I can't get the driver door to unlock, so I can't get it to open, so I can't really check my fuses/under dash without working around an E-brake thats up/stick.

Will look in to the white wire/fuses/ignition switch/ignition coil.. heard about the ignition thing as an idea from another person as well. Are there only two ground locations? Seems like it should be more..

Cthulhuania

I'm not positive if this is the issue because how I was figuring out if there was power to the car was flipping the dome light on to see if there was light..

and when there was light I went to start it but had no power, dome light had no power anymore.

G. Man

When this happened to my dakota, there was no power to the vehicle whatsoever. Key on, no power. Key off, no power.

Cthulhuania

So you just replaced the ignition coil? Or did you replace something ignition related under dash/steering column area? Coil isn't TOO spendy, can afford it at the moment.. but I am tired of fixing stuff that isn't broken.

G. Man

No it was in the steering column. There was an ignition lock and ignition switch. The lock is where you put the key in, and the switch activates the main electrical systems for the vehicle. They are connected and work together. My problem was the lock IIRC. I think you would have the same symptoms from either.

Cthulhuania

Couldn't find it on Autozone, they got Ignition coils, and ignition cylinders. Hmmm....??

I know where you are coming from.. but if my dome light turns on.. and I try to start it.. and the dome light no longer comes on.. has to be something else?