I know what it is now!
What would make the car and everything suddenly die! Not even a click from the ignition after dying, no power at all!
Well it happened again tonight. What I found is my toe is hitting the ignition switch wiring at times and it all goes dead. Tonight when it died I tapped the wire with my toe and everything came back.
So I know where to look anyway.
Kcmash
What good fortune on your part to have had such dumb *** luck! I have a similar story re: a 1973 Mercury Capri with a v-6 that belongs to a family friend and physician. He would drive along and suddenly the engine would die. He hd it at various Lincoln store (Los Angeles area) and Ford stores. The techs replaced everything, and I mean everything per the warranty copies, often the parts replaced had been swapped out more than once. Ignition coils, points, condenser, new spark plugs, distributor cap, rotors, carburetor, distributor, battery, alternator, ignition switch, fuses, fuel filters, fuel pump, fuel lines, even fuel tank, etc... This was definitely a "Hail Mary" shotgun repair effort made by the various dealerships, yet the problem persisted.
Well, my father (also a physician) really did not know to make of me, as I had by that time in life decided to go into auto repair for an occupation vs medical school. I had the chops to do medical school, but my interests were more akin to automobiles. He tried to put on a happy face for me, but I knew he was worried for me. Anyway, in an attempt to demonstrate his confidence in my ability in auto repair and braggingly told hie friend, "I bet Gilbert can fix it!"
So, there I was, given the Capri (5 speed manual, really nicely optioned) for as long as I needed, given $50 for gasoline, and told to ask for more if it was needed, and authorized to drive it as much as needed, to find the problem. And a "good luck" to boot. Me, in my first semester of junior college repair classes up against a problem the many technicians at several different dealerships had not been able to fix. And my father's reputation on the line. Yikes...
I ran it on an oscilloscope, everything looked good. The carburetor worked perfectly. The description of the problem screamed, "electrical." But everything was checking out, perfectly. Everything. But, I decided to persist. I had some advantages over what the various techs had. I knew what parts not to bother replacing because they had already been replaced, and I was not having to "beat the clock" in diagnosing and repairing the car. I could take my time, income generation was not an issue.
One early Saturday morning, on a day I was not scheduled to go into work, I decided to take the Capri out for a long drive down to Pacific Coast Highway and open it up to see how fast it was with the great running v-6. It was still early when I reached PCH, almost no traffic, and it was a nice almost bright morning with no rain or dew. I hit 118 MPH in one direction, turned around to do it again in the other direction. Funny thing, when I put the clutch in toe shift the tachometer went to 0, but when I released the clutch the tach provided a reading. I pulled into a parking lot and found I could suddenly replicate the problem. Clutch goes in, engine dies. Keep it in and I could crank the engine but it would not start and run. Clutch out and it started and ran perfectly, until I put in thee clutch again. I was able to replicate the phantom problem at will, a problem that had not manifested itself earlier all week long. I recognized this was a rare opportunity to locate the problem if my luck held out. With the engine running I popped the hood, and looked at the wires (I was now positive the problem was electrical.
I began to wriggle a few wires here and there, then I noticed a wire with a push-in connector laying on top of the clutch cable. As soon as I touched the wire the engine died! That was my first really big "Eureka!" moment in what would turn out to be a lot of such unusual problem resolutions over the next many years. I restarted the engine and repeated the moving of the wire, which lead to the ignition coil, time and again. I was convinced that was the cause of the problem. I pulled the cheaply assembled connector apart with the intention of twisting the end of the two wires connected together (away from any metal), and found the underlying cause of the problem. The connecter was nothing more than an interlocking set of thin rubber shields. One had a copper terminal with a banded of flat copper formed into a circle, with enough tension to hold onto the 2nd part of the connection. The other terminal was a round headed carriage bolt/screw where the threaded part of the carriage bolt (screw) was simply pushed into the other copper circular band. The problem was that the assembly of the carriage bolt/screw, wire, and rubber hood for the connector relied on a bared end of the ignition wire to be held into place, pushing onto the head of the carriage bolt/screw was secured by the rubber hood having enough elasticity to keep the wire pressed against the bolt head to make an electrical connection. In this case the wire was no firmly pressed onto the bolt head, it had slipped to one side of the bolt head and made intermittent connections and disconnection whenever the clutch cable was relaxed or under pressure, as that caused the clutch cable to move up or down - thus causing the cheap assed connector to open and close the primary ignition current feeding the coil. Frankly, that cheap connector assembly was a problem just waiting to happen.
Anyway, I did twist the wires together, and had both rubber connector hoods on the wire set in such a manner as to insulate the twisted wiring from touching metal anywhere. I took another victory blast up PCH, hitting 118 MPH at max again, then tore through Topanga Canyon back home. Once home I told my parents what I had found and that Dr. Lewis could come get his Capri any time that afternoon (I still hd to complete the wiring connection repair). One would have thought I was a Roman General coming home to a triumphant celebration following a hard ought campaign. My father could not be more proud of me, but he did tell me I could omit the part about driving up and down PCH at 118 MPH out of the story for Dr. Lewis. I think it was at that moment he felt that perhaps I might just be able to make a good living working on cars. The fact was I was dumb lucky. But, I also learned the value in listening to a customer carefully, asking some good questions, and to tug on wiring connectors when chasing down strange problems.
That was only the first of many time I found poor connections, fracturing wiring inside wiring insulation, bad grounds that cause all kinds of problems. And, my father lived long enough to see me become very successful as a technician, a manager in he computer industry, and finally when I founded and ran my own consultancy. Alas, at 91 he was laid to rest, and it was not until a few years later that I ended up selling our business and retiring (medically forced, brain cancer, 8 year survivor). But he lived long enough to see that I did just fine for myself despite not going into the medical profession. I think I had a lot more fun on the journey I took than I would have had as a physician, frankly. With my own very successful computer consultancy I know I did far better financially than any physician I ever met, many times over - and I am definitely having a blast now when I am able to share various diagnostic and repair techniques with fellow enthusiasts with these First Generation Mustangs and Shelbys, in forums like this and any number of Facebook Groups. Now retired I am doing exactly what I said I wanted to do in retirement "someday," play with my Mustang(s) all day...
