I have an electrical short no one can find on a 92 sse ... Now my eletrical is working and my car won't turn over... I have been to 3 electrisions who tell me they can't find anythign wrong. MY Battery, Alternater, Fuses and Fuse blocks are PERFECT.

Here are the simtomes...
her radios starts fliping stations at random...
When she gets Warm her Computer starts reseting. If I keep driving she starts cutting out on me. I let her sit for a few days and she is fine...
I have had her COMPLETELY die on me with out warning. And I mean EVERYTHING went out. She sat for a day and was completely fine for 3 weeks.
She is over heating after sitting at idle for 3 minutes after even a short drive.

Now I've let her sit on a 15 degree angle hill for 2 weeks.. She won't start.. I hear rapid Clicking and the radio works... But she wont' turn over. Almost EVERYTHING on this ******* car is new. Except my Fuel system and elertical. Any ideas?

I hear your pain.

The radio flipping brings up a question. Do you have steering wheel controls that control your radio? I'm thinking maybe something in the column is rubbed and grounding? To flip stations there would need to be a specific resistance value.

Sounds like you have looked, but have you checked under the carpet for water?

There is a ground for parts of the dash over by the emergency brake lever, wondering if you checked this.

You mention the car gets overheated quickly.. that should be seperate from the electrical problems with the exception of the question.. are the fans turning on if needed or is the car simply heating up too quickly and something is wrong?

I'm gonna quibble with that here and say that you have a drain here, not a short, since your fuses are all perfect. My point is that you're looking for a poor connection or an intermittent one; I don't think you're going to find damaged wires rubbing on sheet metal or anything like that. In fact I think your wiring may be just fine, aside from maybe some grubby connections; read on.

I believe your voltage is way down, barely enough to run the car. A dip in voltage will trigger a processor reset as soon as it comes back up again, and that includes not only an ECM reset (which will make the engine stagger, as I think its fuel injection timing will be interrupted for a second) but also a dash gauge controller reset -- if you see your needles all suddenly do a prove-out sweep from peg to peg, as if you had just started the car, that'* your gauge controller doing a reset.

Well, as of right now, that click-click-click-click-click is the starter gear slipping against the flywheel, telling you that the battery is almost dead. Get a jump-start and you'll get going again. HOWEVER, I doubt it'* going to stay going very long, because I think you're basically running the whole car on the battery.

Do this:

1) Clean your battery cable terminals at both ends of each cable. This includes the cable that terminates at the top center of the firewall under the MaxiFuse/Relay Center cover.

2) Pull the battery, have it properly charged outside the car (don't skip this step; it clearly needs a recharge first), then have a load test run on it to check its overall health.

3) Pull the alternator (not difficult) and have it bench-tested for output at Auto Zone or someplace with the right equipment. I know you say three electricians say they can't find anything wrong, but with all due respect to them, I don't think they checked very far, and I particularly don't think that anyone has verified these steps above: that you have a good battery, and that the alternator is producing enough amperage to not only run the car but also recharge the battery.

(3a) I don't want to hear that some numb-nuts "tested" the alternator by disconnecting the battery to see if the engine would stay running. That will not prove anything, and can damage the alternator if done long enough.)

Good luck!

if there is a power drain.....it could be the ELC draining the battery....

There could be a power drain, although I would think you'd hear it if it was the air pump. Also, once the car is running, it should be okay even with an accessory stuck on, but it sounds like this one can barely make it down the road under its own power.

-- Andy

try hooking a digital voltmeter to the Batt. terminal while you pull fuses one at a time.
if the voltage goes up there is your drain circuit.
My dad had this problem with his 305 impala. Would go dead when it sat overnight.
turned out to be the glove box light staying on.
In your case the Alt should give you enough volts while running to override any drain.
If a circuit component is intermittenly shorting out that could explain your radio.

I've pulled both Altanator and Battery and visited my local Autozone.. so the problem is now that it comes back as both are FINE!! Any other ideas?

Harley.. Midol is spelled with an o..lol I like the sig though.

Learned from a mechanic buddy of mine is to disconnect the battery and hook a multimeter in between and look for current being drawn. Sometimes circuit by circuit. If you don't have a factory service manual I'd suggest one for this procedure. It is time consuming.

This should however isolate any draws you have that are pulling the battery down. As 1993 SLE suggests, consider first trying to isolate it by unplugging the ELC compressor under the hood. It'* possible your struts are not holding air properly and the compressor is running to reinflate them.

Frankly, I don't think that will really work on a modern car, because you have a number of components that always draw power (e.g. ECM Keep Alive Memory, radio preset memory, Keyless Entry receiver, clock, other component memories such as power seats, etc.). You would have to disconnect _every_ such circuit before expecting to see zero current draw off the battery, and even then you couldn't be sure if a current draw at that point was due to a genuine leak or to an always-hot circuit that you had overlooked somewhere.

I would recommend instead that you put the meter across the fuse terminals for each circuit instead. If the circuit should be off at that time, you should see zero current flow.

NOTE: BE SURE YOUR METER CAN HANDLE A 30-AMP DIRECT CURRENT FLOW. A lot of multimeters can measure high AC (alternating current) amperage, but NOT high DC (direct current). Look at the DC amperage range on your multimeter and make sure it'* measured in amps, not _milliamps_. (Some people troubleshoot with a light bulb or 12-volt LED instead. That might be better.)

Yeah, I guess if it'* activating periodically, when you're not around, that'* a possibility.

-- Andy (who ran his own battery down to stone dead recently by leaving a map light on and parking it for a week... )

all great suggestions. Maybe youll be fortunate and find the circuit without having
to go through all of them.
Although there is a slight draw on some circuits in the modern car, its certainly not enough to drain the Batt. in a couple days. your looking for a major draw on any one of the circuits.