wow, I'm really beginning to hate this car...

94 w/ 3vze


today, on the way to work, the tach started going wacky - but the car drove fine (rpm's sounded normal)... I made it to work, went out at lunch, and yep - no start... it also has a rear antilock brake light on... I think it came on at the same time, but with the glare this morning, it may have happened shortly before.

any ideas? some kind of sensor I'm hoping... battery looks good, and I can hear the starter turning everything over... I figure if it was the fuel pump or anything related to the ingition (plugs, wires, distributor, coil pack, etc) it would have died on the freeway... any known problems with the sender unit on these cars?

A wild guess would be to check the crankshaft position sensor.

yeah, I was guessing the cps too...

but I jumped it with a good strong car, and got it running briefly... drained the battery to 7.2 volts before it died... suggesting it's the charging system. Pulled the alternator, ran it down to advance for testing - tested ok... picked up another alternator (rebuild) and it didn't correct the problem - also tested ok at advance. I know there are basically 2 connections on the alternator that matter (besides the belt : ). There's the wire that seems to be the hot source - just a screw where a piece of wire goes... and then there's this plug (and I'm not really sure what it does, but it goes into the wiring harness).

Anyone know where I should start tracing in terms of wires? And what I should be looking for? I have a multimeter, but it doesn't get used much besides checking batteries and basic continuity checks (so consider me close to clueless : )

Check your battery. If the voltage got that low, you may have damaged it or it may already have been dead.

brand new battery - checked out ok (by advance)... funny thing is, threw an optima red top in it from another car, and it liked it... so advance traded the battery out for us... so far (tonight) no problems (here's knocking on wood)