You're welcome. You want to take that connection apart and clean it up real well. Get rid of any corrosion, then apply some dielectric grease and put everything back the way it was.

Are the ground connectors next to the parking brake and on thepassenger side under the carpet also ones to check?

That'* a good question. I do know that the one pictured has shown to be a culprit in a number of electrical problems in the past. IMO and experience, it never hurts to check connectors for corrosion/damage (as long as you don't do any further damage while doing so.. ).



Oh, and imidazol, check your PMs, please.

lash, does that piece of trim that holds your carpet down come out with screws? LUCKY.

I don't see screws on mine, I believe it is held down by metal clips. If I ever met the guy who'* idea it was to attach interior trim pieces with plastic or metal clips instead of screws.........
Does anybody know for sure if I am correct about this piece being held by clips?

I found mine to be attached with clips of some sort. I went out there with the screwdriver, and then couldn't find anything to unscrew. (Wierd, I think everything elsse I own has screws holding in the interior trim pieces.) I realaized I wasn't quite in the proper mind-set to deal with them. It is something that I'd like to take apart and check out some day, but I felt like I'd probably have broken something if I would have fought with it saturday.

What I DID find, was a fair amount of corrosion at the positive battery terminal. so I cleaned that up well, and also solved my battery hold-down bolt issue. Now there is absolutely NO movement allowed at the battery, whereas before it could be moved a little bit by hand.

So far, so good. Drove the car quite a bit over the weekend, with no issues. I guess I'll wait a few days before thinking that I've got it solved, but it'* looking good.

After putting the battery back in and getting the cables re-attached, I took a little time and cleaned up the engine bay some. It was so dirty, I was somewhat ashamed. That was a nice feeling, seeing the improvement. There'* another task I'd like to take care of some day, as the little bit of effort I put into it saturday Am really made a difference. But there'* still a long way to go. . . .

Glad to hear it. Did you happen to pull the protective boots off the cables and look for corrosion at the cable crimp?

I don't think I have the original cables, as I didn't see anything quite like a boot, that was removable. Looked to be a one-piece molded shell of sorts.

But as far as my visual inspection could get me, they both looked fine, no signs of corrosion anywhere besides what I found at the positive terminal/cable connection.

Upon reading this thread, I also set to cleaning battery terminals and cables. Wow. There was quite a bit of corrosion on both -/+ . My positive cable was actually in two stacked parts One part was molded and the other did have a removable boot. As my problem had seemed to subside BEFORE I did this, it is hard to say if this helped or not. I quess we'll find out.

UPDATE:

Well, it'* been over a week, and no strange electrical happenings so far. :P

Thanks to everyone that offered up some ideas. As of right now I think the loose battery and coroded cable at the positive terminal seemed to be the culprits.

Glad to hear that everything is still going well.....it is amazing how many issues can be caused by those cables, the connections, and the corrosion, no matter how little corrosion there seems to be.