This is a friends car.

89 Bonnie SE, Junkyard motor and trans (no idea how many miles), and they don't know how many are on the chassis. Prolly around 200k.

Anyway, they got the car a while back to use for transportation, brought it over to my house and it ran fine. Parked it, wen't out the next day and it wouldn't start. I sprayed some ether in the air intake and it fired right up, and then died as soon as the ether was burned up.

I checked fuel pressure by depressing the schrader valve on the fuel rail and all I got was a dribble. I assumed the fuel pump was out. The other thing that bothered me was that the dome light kept staying on and draining the battery.

Fast-forward to a couple months later (now). They have the car towed to a shop to have them look at the fuel pump. Guy at the shop takes one look, says its a bad ground (which was draining the battery and shorting the rest of the electrical system).

Is this a possibility? If thats true, where is the most likely place for a bad ground on an 89? To my knowledge, there is a bundle of wire by the drivers side seat under the carpet that has a bad habit of corroding and causing a bad ground sometimes. Will this cause these symptoms?

Input would be appreciated as the mechanic at the shop is advising my friends to junk the car. I say thats nonsense since they just put a ton of money in new parts (plugs, wires, filters, new fluid, etc.) to get the car safe just before it decided to quit working.

Fuel pump grounds at the driver'* side ground bus. Here'* a Techinfo article on the problem. http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...=article&k=102 Note that the ground bus is the connector with the black wires going to it.

I doubt if a bad ground is draining the battery. Did you fix the dome light?

No, didn't fix the dome light. Not sure how. I'm pretty sure its juts a matter of replacing the pins by the doors that tell the dome light when its open or not.

I'll let my friends know about the ground issue... I thought I had remembered that being an issue. Makes me want to open up mine just to see if It needs some cleaning.

With no fuel pressure at the rail you need to verify if the pump runs when you key the car up without starting it. There is a green jumper wire near the battery terminal for jumping and testing the pump. Have you checked the fuses first.

All fuses have been checked.

The mechanic working on it thinks its the ignition switch in the column itself... which kinda makes sense. The trunk release quit working even when the key was in and turned to "on"...

kinda sounds like the ignition switch if the trunk release stoped working at the same time. did you get the normal cluster lights when you turned the switch to on?