I have a 95 SE. In the last 24 hours, it has taken to stalling. Specifically, it will turn off and warning lights will come on. The car can be restarted. Several times, it has actually restarted while rolling. Other times, after I have stopped the car, I've had to restart it normally. Usually that works, but last night was a particularly bad time when it would stop with just about any motion, including simply raising the steering wheel.
When it first started, I thought perhaps it was idling too low. However, that was before last night.
I then thought there was a short in the electrical system. I had replaced the automatic antenna a couple months ago, and I thought perhaps I did something wrong.
I tried removing the fuse that ran the antenna/radio to see if that isolated the problem, but while my radio didn't work, the problem still persisted. This time, after stalling, I was able to restart it but everytime I would move from park into drive, the car would shut down again. I noticed a series of clicks coming from the vicintiy of the fuse box. There is some relationship between the clicks and the car turning off and on.
My next course of action is to go outside and continue to isolate the problem. But, I don't have a lot of experience with the electrical systems and I was hoping that someone would have a clue.
It sounds like it is out of gas.... Are you sure your fuel pressure is adequate? Gas guage is not fried? Aaron
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Aaron Ford
95 2WD Nissan PU E
2002 Oldsmobile Intrigue GX
"The hard part about playing chicken is knowing when to flinch" Scott Glenn in The Hunt for Red October
In more testing, today the car failed but I still haven't been able to pin down what is failed. It stalled. I was able to restart it. Stalled again. Restarted. Stalled when I put it in Drive. Restarted it. Stalled when I put it in Drive. Restarted it. (Polite people about this time offered help). Stalled about 5 seconds after restarting. Would not start (or turn over at all) for about 15 seconds. Then restarted. Stalled about 5 seconds later. Would not start (or turn over at all) for about 15 seconds. Do 5 more times. Then it started and stayed running. Each failure was accompanied by a clicking sound vicinity the fuse box. I would have spent more time working trying to find the sound except it was not a safe area. When I finally got it to a safe area, it would not fail. Ran it for another 30 minutes and no failures. Walked away. Came back. Ran it another 30 minutes and no failures.
I am trying to find out if something else is causing the engine to not get fuel. Perhaps a relay is tripping that shuts off fuel, as if I had turned off the car. Thats what I'm trying to find out now.
During Day 3:
I tried to get the fault to rear its head, but it failed to do so.
So I went to trying to reproduce the fault manually.
A friend mentioned the fuel pump relay might be faulty. In order to reproduce that fault, I pulled the fuse for my fuel pump. The car stalled, but there were two clear problems. One, the stall wasn't the same. When I pulled the fuse, the car still ran for a second or two. When the car stalls because of the unfound fault, it immediately dies. The second is, the fuse does not cause the same electrical failures that my mystery problem causes.
So I tried another attempt. Went to a parking lot, turned on my hazard lights, put it in drive at a very slow speed, and turned my pathfinder off. These results appear to be identical to my mystery fault. Specifically, the car shut off immediately, all of the power systems that operate only if the key is inserted and on (radio/antenna) failed, and the other electrical systems that did not depend on the key (like hazard lights and clock) continued to work uninteruppted.
So the new question is, what would cause the car to think the ignition was turned off?
Linear Mode
