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94 Park Avenue dying


mhill0732
06-01-2008, 06:18 PM
Ok here we go. I have read through the forum here and saw a lot of posts with problems that are simular to ours, but here we go. My mother-in-law has a 94 PA with a 3800. We have replaced the crank sensor, cam sensor, battery, starter (brother in law thought that was the problem so he replaced it), and fuel pump. Here is the problem. When she is driving the car it seems to run fine, but sometimes it will dye when she comes to a stop and will not restart, or if she shuts it off it will not restart. If we take the possative or negetive cable off and leave it off for a few seconds it will start right up. Sometimes it will run for days after that, sometimes just for a very short time. Also I should mention that when it does this, the power seats will not work, and the power windows will not work. The lights come on, the radio works. If appears to have an electrical problem to me with the window, seat problem. I have used jumper cables to ensure that we didn't have a bad ground to engine, and/or bad ground to body and neither seemed to help. I am lost. I am 47 years old, and have been working on cars since I was 13. I have never run into anything like this. HELP

C man
06-01-2008, 06:53 PM
I think some threads on here refer to a bus under the drivers side carpet that causes the symptoms that u are describing. It gets corroded due to salt and water and causes electrical problems.

mhill0732
06-01-2008, 08:51 PM
I think some threads on here refer to a bus under the drivers side carpet that causes the symptoms that u are describing. It gets corroded due to salt and water and causes electrical problems.

C man
You ROCK, GOOD CALL..... Did a search on the forums, and found this thread
http://www.automotiveforums.com/t682996-electrical_problem__.html
Went back to the car, found the ground buss, found 3 of the 7 wire connection areas were VERY corroded, and one of them had gotten so hot from having a bad connection it had started melting the plastic. I was able to recreate the problem by moving the wires back and forth so I was pretty sure that was what the problem was. I removed the wires from the bus, cleaned up everything, put di electric grease on everything put it back together and could not make the problem reappear. Thanks for the info, all is well, and more important MOTHER-IN-LAW IS HAPPY!!! :smooch:

C man
06-01-2008, 09:04 PM
Glad I could help. I live in the south so road salt is not a problem for me. But I do like to looking up diffrent problems just in case I ever encounter them. Plus as they say "knowledge is power".

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