Hello all. Got myself a 98 Z28 with about 19,3xx miles.

Twice in the last two days the engine shut down while the car was moving at slow speed.

When this happens a "check gauges" light shows. The car will crank right back up without a problem.

The first time this happened it was while I was going up a slight incline into a parking lot. The second time was while I was coming out of a slight incline of someone's driveway.

Upon checking the gauges I noticed the oil pressure is below the "40" mark. The car is too hot to deal with and I don't have a funnel right this second but I'm wondering if this can be caused by not having enough oil.

*edit* Also, it's normal for the fan to continue cooling the car even after the car is off, correct?

 

Check your oil level, if it moves too much off of your oil level sensor(mounted on the side of the oil pan) the engine may die, also check all of your engine grounds. Yes the cooling fan will stay on after the engine is shut off.

 

It could be something along the lines of a Cam or Crank sensor. If the computer loses that signal it will die.. It basically loses the signal that tells the computer where the cylinders are as in firing order... amongst many other things that signal is used for to run the car.

If it stored a code, bring it to autozone or somewhere to have the PCM read for codes.

 

Got the car to Auto Zone. Nothing came up on the check. The guy took a look at it an noticed a "loose tentioner".

No clue what that is but he showed me the part and it was definately shaking around. He said the tentioner shouldn't move at all. He said the stalling could come from the power steering interfering with the tentioner when I turn the wheel as far as it goes.

Any opinions on this theory? (it happened twice last night while the steering wheel was turned all the way to the right again)

 

^ That guy is SO full of s**t...

The tensioner can move, there's nothing wrong with it. It actually should move a little bit. The moving around is normal, it should do that to some extent. If it's not moving, tit could be frozen like many GM tensioner do.. .

If the PS pump was seizing, I guess you could say, the belt would squeal like crazy and that engine makes more then enough power at idle to not stall out if the PS pump 'seizes'. Don't trust half the s**t that any Autozone 'tech' says.. More than half of them are morons.

I think the car dying while it was steered all the way to the lock was just a coincidence.

How's the battery?

 

The battery is new.

This has happened 4 times now, all while the steering wheel was turned completely to one side or the other.

 

If your car has the anti-theft system for the ignition with the resistor embedded in the ignition key it may be going wonky on you and causing everything to shut down

I'm sure you could test the resistance of the key but to do that you'd need to know what hte resistance is supposed to be and I can't help you with that - maybe Shoebox has info on his site about this?

Do you have a different key that you could try using to see if that clears up the problem?

 

I have a different key but the problem is so unpredictable it'll be hard to know if the problem was fixed until (if) it happens again. I'll try it though, and hopefully it'll help.

 

it coud possibly be a faulty fuel pump

 

What's the hold down? The terminals are tight, I checked that last night.

I'm thinking it's a battery problem. I notice the last few times this happened that the battery guage red lined. I noticed when the a/c is on full blast the needle almost red lines. When I turn the wheel hard to the left or right...again, almost red lines.

 

Take your alternater out and have it checked.

 

Yep probably a bad alternator or bad battery.

 

Any way I can have the alternator checked without taking it out of the car?

 

Always check the simplest things first in a logical order. Dont jump to conclusions like cam sensors,keys etc. Have you ever checked the oil in the car yet? If not do that first. If you just recently bought the car I suggest a new oil filter and 5.5 quarts of 5-30 oil. Then move on to other logical causes in a logical order. Alot of times the problem can be solved easily. Power steering pump could be an issue if the car is dying while turning the wheel hard. But I thought the car was dying on steep roads and driveways? Also-the belt tensioner should stay relatively in the same position-if its moving around that could be an issue (and of course the pulley goes in a circle where the belt rides on it).

 

I had the oil changed Friday.

The car dies if I turn the wheel all the way to either side no matter if it's inclined or not. The first two times it happened it was on an incline which led me to believe that the incline might have something to do with it. And the belt tensioner is definately moving around. It's not jumping off the engine but it's not sticking to it either.