QuestionI recently had a fuel filter and fuel pump installed on my 65 Imperial Coupe. Today she stalled out on me and the battery just seemed to have died. she was running fine and then she just stulls out and dies on me. turned key and the battery seemed dead. called 3A, they came and , at first the man thought it must be the alt. to cause her to just stop when she was running fine. then he asked me to turn the head lights on before he jumped the car just to see if battery was dead. well, the lights went on fine. he thought the alt.went bad and the car wouldnt start with just a jump----well to his suprise,he jumped her, and she fired right up! I was just a block from my house. put her in the gargage, and later in the day went out and she started right up like nothing was wrong. the alt. gauge moves forward when I gas her. returns to middle on idle mode. the battery is 3 years old, I will replace it, would a weak battery cause her to die even when shes in motion ? could it be the alt. or regulator ? Im stumped. Thank you for any infro , Bob Hall
AnswerThere are a long list of possible causes for your symptoms, but two things are definitely NOT on that list. Your battery is at least marginally adequate, and your alternator is fine. Your charging indicator is telling you that your alternator is putting out charging current if it swings toward +, even a little bit, when you run the engine up from idle. If it holds in the + zone even with the headlights on, your alternator is working like new, and your voltage regulator is fine also.
If your battery can crank the engine, you know it must have had enough charge in it then, and batteries don't fix themselves.
No, what you had was some sort of intermittant electrical failure, and it could be almost anywhere. My guess is that you have a loose wire, either on the coil + connection (look at the coil, it is right toward the front of the engine, almost hidden by the edge of the air cleaner, on the right side of the engine. There are 3 terminals on it. The one that goes to side of the distributor body is the (-) terminal, the one that goes into the wiring harness is the (+) terminal, and of course the center one goes to the distributor cap. I suspect the one on the (+) terminal - possibly loose. Also, somewhere on the firewall is the other end of the same wire, which goes to the ballast resistor - a sort of white porcelain wire wound resistor, with terminals on both ends. Check those connections carefully, in fact with the engine idling, wiggle all those wires and connections, if you can make the engine stall, you've found the loose connection. Sometimes, the wire is bad internally, and it isn't visible - but you can replace the wire and that fixes the problem.
Now, when it wouldn't start for you after it stalled, but the headlights looked normal, that certainly wasn't the battery's fault. More likely, the starter relay is getting intermittant - these cars are famous for that problem (I know, I have one!). The starter relay is on the inner fender near the battery, with about 6 wires going to it. You can replace this quite cheaply, NAPA and other parts stores carry it, and I would just replace it rather than worry about it. Of course it is also possible you didn't have it all the way into Park position, or that your neutral safety switch is acting up, but that is relatively rare for these - so try the other things first.
While I have you on the line, are you aware of our Imperial Club? If not, go to www.imperialclub.com and look around our web site. It is free, and you'll find about 700 people with cars just like yours, and believe me, most of them are very sharp about these cars, and all of them are friendly and helpful!
Good luck, and let me know if I can be of any further help - or post your question to the IML after you join - I'm on there too, along with about 5 or 6 other guys who know these cars very well.
Dick
