'94 Bad A Z28

So the car was idling in the driveway and then it just shut off. I figured okay weird the car stalled, whatever. Went to restart it and nothing. With the key in the on position everything works normal, radio comes on and what not, except that the voltage gauge does not read anything, it just slightly raises from the completely down "off" position.


Okay, now a little background. For a little while now the voltage gauge has only showed 9-10 volts with the car running. Ran a scanner (PCMCom, and a couple others) and the voltage reads 9.7-9.9ish idling and 10.5ish with any throttle. So you would think maybe the alternator or battery is going, well I tested the battery two different ways. First I connect the battery to a battery charger to see if maybe it needed a good slow charge, but that wasn't it. That said the batter already had a 100% charge, okay rule out the battery maybe. Then tested both the battery and alternator with a digital multi-metter with the car running. Battery was reading 14.2-14.4 volts and the alternator (don't remember the reading I had an electrical guy do it) was perfectly fine. Also let me say that I never though it was the alternator because a couple months ago I brought the alternator in to Advanced to be bench tested for another problem that went away after I reconnected everything (also weird, but it worked), anyways they tested it and it worked like a brand new alternator.


So somewhere there is a voltage drop/draw I was actually trying to track that down when this happened. So that threw me off completely and now I have no clue what is going on. Some people might want to suggest that maybe the ignition swithch decided to let go right at that moment, but I highly dought that since I replaced my ignition switch about three and a half to four years ago and the car basically sat for two of those years while other problems were being taken care off... tranny/motor/blah blah blah...


So if anyone has any ideas or has had something similar happen your comments are more than welcome.


TIA
Eddie

shoebox

I'd still say it is the ignition switch or the connectors going to it are making a poor connection. Shutting off by itself is a typical ignition switch/connection scenario.

MEAN LT1

Check your battery junction box for loose connections. test the connection with your hands first and then try it with a socket wrench. This solved my low voltage problem.

'94 Bad A Z28

I really hope it's not the ignition switch again, that thing is such a PITA to change out.

ajenks_32

i had the same problem about 3 weeks ago. It was the opti-spark, changed it about a week ago and havn't had a problem since, I never would have thought it would have been the problem, thats probably why it took me 800 bucks to track the problem down, because I couldn't figure out why it would have been the opti-spark. I think that might be your problem

'94 Bad A Z28

Could be, but there really isn't any voltage passing threw my opti, I have a LTCC.

meissen

The only time my voltage gauge showed below 12v is when the belt was off the alternator. I'd start with the alt.

'94 Bad A Z28

Didn't get around to working on it at all today, it was one of my friends birthday's so yeah... Probably get to it this weekend, I am going to a theme park tomorrow (later today).

'94 Bad A Z28

Okay, so I decided to work on the problem today.

First I tried a friends brand new Optima RedTop since mine is about seven years old, still the same thing happens so that ruled out my RedTop being bad.

Started checking all fuses, again, and everything is fine.

Well as some of you know I recently installed a LTCC, I figured maybe something came loose that I was over looking. Start checking everything and all seems well. Then something caught my attention. It looked like my ground strap to the motor was disconnected, like some how it had been cut from its connection. So I took that ground strap bolt off to take what I thought was a cut fitting off to go get a new one, but that one was fine it was just twisted in a strange way. But there was a broken ground fitting in that cluster of grounds. Replaced the fitting and the car started right up, and no more low voltage problem.

So to anyone having a low voltage problem I suggest checking your block grounds.