79 sa electrical problem
 

:Wconfused I have not been able to find anything in the archives. when the car is off, you turn on the lights and all the electrical turns on in engine compartment. i bought the car not knowing it had this problem. Only paid $100 for the car; previous owner couldn't get it started. Poured atf in the carb at home and vroom.
Please help!!

what do you mean "all the electrical turns on in engine compartment" ?

yeah. if i add a push button, she'll start!

what do you mean though that "all the electrical turns on in engine compartment" ? what is coming on?

You do realize that the engine compartment is under the hood, the 'engine bay'. I have yet to see any lights in there. Now, if you mean when you turn the key on, all the dash lights light up, that's a power on test to check for burnt out bulbs. If you're going to ask questions, you need to be more specific and use the correct terms. Otherwise you won't get much in the way of any kind of sensible answer.

^ sorry, newb here. when you turn on the lights (parking and head lights) and the ignition off, all the electrical in the engine bay turns on.

Sounds like a short (or a miswire) between the headlight feed and the main ignition power feed.

You need to get comfy under the dash, and see if you can find signs of wiring mods. Betting you'll find some. Also check the fusebox for those aftermarket piggyback clips, make sure the previous owner didn't end up making a short trying to pirate power from somewhare.

What aftermarket electrical does the car have? Stereo, foglights, anything like that?

found the problem. he jumped power from the light cluster to the ignition wiring. dont know why he did it. after repairing it to factory, eveything has its own power and function. thanks for the help.