Intermittent problem(s)

A

anejr

Registered User
1990 SC, 5-speed, a little under 50,000 miles.

Several times in the past few weeks, it has done 1 of 2 things:

Surging -- actually somewhere between surging and bucking. RPMs go up and down by maybe 500 RPM. Throttle opening doesn't matter, except that it's closer to "bucking" than surging when I step on the gas. Tach keeps working. No CEL.

Starting problems -- acts like no gas/no spark. With multiple tries, sometimes acts as though the battery is very low or timing is completely cockeyed (i.e., the engine doesn't spin, it stalls the starter).

So far, both of these problems have cleared up of their own accord. The first stops happening in a minute or two, or if I let the car idle for a short period. The second clears up when I turn the ignition off and back on. The car runs normally when it's not showing the problem(s).

The problem(s) have only occurred after the car has been driven, then parked for 1-3 hours.

One other symptom, which may be related -- once, after about 15 miles on the freeway and a 30-minute stop at the grocery story, both brake warning lights came on and stayed on until I turned the car off after driving home. The brakes worked normally. The lights acted normal next time I started it, and have ever since.

This all sounds like electrical connection problems to me. I don't have the time these days to work on it, or the means to pull any codes that might be stored. I'll take it to my mechanic, who is good, but I'd appreciate any directive advice from this here batch of experts!

Thanks!

--Al Evans
 
I had similar intermittent problems with my 95 5 spd....ocassionally, my air bag and anti-lock brake lights would come on, ocassionally run rough, etc. Turns out my problem was fixed when I changed my alternator and battery. I think my battery was bad, causing the alternator to work too hard and therefore ruined the alternator....it finally left me stranded on the side of the road before I ended up replacing them.

Not saying that this is definitely your problem, but it sound similar to the problem I had.
 
Kurt K said:
I had similar intermittent problems with my 95 5 spd....ocassionally, my air bag and anti-lock brake lights would come on, ocassionally run rough, etc. Turns out my problem was fixed when I changed my alternator and battery. I think my battery was bad, causing the alternator to work too hard and therefore ruined the alternator....it finally left me stranded on the side of the road before I ended up replacing them.

Not saying that this is definitely your problem, but it sound similar to the problem I had.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. In this case, the battery and cables were replaced about four months ago, and the alternator was fine at that point.

Anybody else?

Thanks again,

--Al Evans
 
i had a some what similar problem with the surging. but when mine started surging for about 5 sec it would cut off and not start for about 5-10 min then was fine for the rest of the day. my problem was a harmonic balancer.
 
When the battery and cables were replaced did you let the computer properly relearn idle? If not I'd unhook the battery for a few minutes to reset the computer, then follow the relearn procedure.

As for the brake lights, usually that means the pump isn't working. When my lights stayed on my brake pedal was hard as a rock because my pressure switch died. On my 92 the relay for the ABS motor went bad and wouldn't power the unit.
 
how old are ur spark plugs and wires ? usually bucking and surging is from plugs and wires.

i'd think the cam sensor would cause ur intermittent starting. u ever lse signal from the tach ?
 
Followup

Just to follow up on this:

I took the car to my mechanic. Naturally, it worked perfectly for both of us. There were no codes stored in the computer.

We agreed that while it could probably use new plugs and wires, neither of these were likely to cause the "one minute it works, next minute it doesn't" symptoms I was seeing.

We also agreed that the symptoms were consistent with a DIS module that's going bad. Of course, he might have just wiggled the right wires to fix an intermittent connection.

If it's the module, it will get worse. If not, it won't. So I'm going to wait and see.

--Al Evans
 
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