So I was driving along at 60 or so and I felt a couple of small shudders then the car died.

I've never had it die while running before, little worried. I' haven't taken a look at it yet but any ideas on what to check first? Engine only has 5000 miles or so.

84 GSL-SE

Thanks,

Rhett

 

Same thing happened to me once.. turned out the alternator was shot, and wasn't charging the battery. The battery ran out of juice when I was doing 60 mph, and after a shudder or two, the engine stopped. Any chance that it's a bad alternator? Or is the engine (rotors) seized?

 

if it still cranks, might be a dead ignitor.

 

Maybe the leading igniter fried? Are there igniters on the 13b in '84? Also as the above user stated, the alternator could have failed and the battery just eventually drained. Did you notice your voltage gauge or charge gauge change any while driving? Did your lights (were you driving at night?) dim any? Check the charge on your battery, if it is extremely low, recharge and see if the car starts then check across the battery terminals to see if you're getting about 14v output which would show the alternator is working. If it is quite a bit lower then the alternator is kaput or something between the alternator and the battery is gone. Once had the charging wire shear off inside its insulation (not sure how that happened) and couldn't tell from just looking at it so I replaced the alternator and it worked intermittently (sp?) for about a day. Guess I got the wire to short itself again for a little bit and then once it stopped working I was puzzled. I started doing resistance tests across the ground, charge, and control (different car but still relative) wires. That is when I found that the charge wire was bad. Repaired it and the alternator had actually fried itself because of this, gotta love warrantees though

 

It cranks fine, stereo works so I guess its not the alternator.

I'll check out the ignitors I guess........damn those things are expensive / hard to find

Rhett

 

If I pull a plug and have it crank I should be able to see the plug spark right ? Do I put the body of it up against a ground ? I saw it done once but can't remember exactly.

If the ignitor or alternator is gone I will not be getting spark correct ?

Rhett

 

I hate posting so many replies but something else just occured to me.

The tach went to zero several seconds before the dash lit up and the brakes went unpowerd. Tach is dependent on the trailing ignitor or something isn't it ?

Rhett

 

yep, actually it's the trailing coil that controls the tach.

 

Yep sounds like you fried the trailing ignitor. When the ignitor fails it shuts down the fuel pump as well which is why engine stalled.

 

try finding the ignitor a a junkyard, way cheaper b/c those guys don't know how much it is worth

 

Im selling damon a complete motor that has igniters on it, PM him maybe he will part them out to you

 

check thepartstrader.com, too. i posted a want ad there a while back and i got like 6 replies with offers like "i've got a working pair i'll sell for $25 shipped."

 

Did you check your engine fuse? Does your warning lights light up when you have the key in on position. I missed this once and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't start. Later on I found that the ACV control wire had shorted out on the solinoid on it and since I was about to change over to a Mikuni intake at the time, I just unplugged it and put a new fuse on and drove away.