mtman

My wife's SC is having an issue with with intermittent electrical and starting issues. When it fails to start it goes completely dead electrically, no head lights, dash lights, horn, auto adjust steering, door locks, and on and on.All fuses checked good, power to fuse junction box is over 12V. Near new fully charged battery and new terminals. Once the electrical is down I have to wait a couple of hours before I can operate the door locks, dash lights, power seats, etc. If I attempt to start it up with the key in the ignition and turn to crank engine over, it will totally die again. Don't believe it's an inline fusible link. I think it's the electronic portion of the keyed ignition switch. If that's the case how do I get to it?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

1JZPWRD

iTrader: (59)

How often does this happen? When you say completely dead? It will not turn over, no clicking noise, no relays, nothing? No lights come on no where? More details please.

mtman

Absolutely nothing. This is a problem that just started a few days ago. The car will start on occasion but it's unpredictable. Just checked it again. Had power to door locks, seats, and "open door" panel light. Inserted key and steering wheel came down as it's supposed to. However when I turned key, everything went dead again. What do you think?

1JZPWRD

iTrader: (59)

Bad ground, if the battery is good and the alternator is charging it. Is there an aftermarket installed alarm?

mtman

No aftermarket alarm. Bad Ground? Do you think it's at the ig switch?

sjc2467

This. It could also be a bad positive connection. The most likely location is the battery terminal connections, but it could be anywhere in the positive or ground wire from the battery to the fusebox or chassis. Since the issue is effecting power to the entire vehicle (not just components powered by the ignition or a certain circuit) it is almost certainly an issue in one of the main battery cables.

(Again, the most common cause of this issue (fairly common on all cars) is corrosion or just looseness where the cable clamps on the battery terminal.)

mtman

OORAH! The ground issue was right on the money. The ground cable from the battery has a plastic sheath on it and once I removed that cable and inspected it without that sheath I found the problem. CORROSION! New cable and the auto starts great. Hopefully no other problems will arise. From a car that started out as a hobby, it soon turned into a full time job. Gentlemen, thank all of you for your comments and final solution. Now my wife won't have to drive to work in my rickety CJ5.

BTF

I was going to tell you to check your ground cable. I had this same problem. One day I'm driving home at 65 in a 55 on the back roads, luckily on a straightaway. When what he was experiencing happened. My cars lights, power steering, engine, everything you could think of except brakes died. didn't know exactly where I was with no signal. Luckily it came alive 45 minutes later. enough to make it to town, where it died immediately. The car wouldn't even allow me to place it in neutral without override below the shifter. This car was never meant to have a dead battery lol.

Anyways, I would be careful when you change the ground clamp. Especially if you change the battery at the same time I did. my 2 alternator fuses and radio fuse blew up when i changed the battery. The new power could shock the cars system.

~Good luck, my sc hasnt had a problem since.
96' sc300 104,000 then. 108,000 now.