Pontiac Repair: 1994 Pontiac Transport Ques., pontiac transport, loose power

Question
QUESTION: I have a 1994 Pontiac Transport V6 3.8 Liter. All of a sudden my van won't stay running. I would crank it up and drive it up the road and then it would completely die while actually driving it. Its in my driveway now and it would crank up and idle for about two to five minutes and then die. No matter if you pushed the gas pedal or not. Now it won't crank at all although I haven't jumped it off yet.  I orginally thought it might be the battery not getting enough charge so I replaced it and it still does it. Do you have any ideas what the problem may be?

ANSWER: Hi Ron:

well when it was running is the battery light on? doe it loose battery power like the blower motor power windows etc or doe the engine just loose power and die? when it quits running is it like someone just shut off the key or does it chug buck and sputter before it dies?

The engine is loosing either spark or fuel or even both. when you jumps start it and get it running let it just run untill it dies out and observe wheat it does like I said if it's just like the key was turned off or not and you can go from there as to what end to look at. Good luck :)


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello again, I have finally been able to jump the van off and for the first fifteen minutes it would die out every 1 to 2 minutes. Everything runs still the blower motor, a/c, lights, power door. I then cranked it one more time and it stayed running for awhile so I decided to take it up the road. Everything did well. Once I shut it off again it started all over again. I also noticed that all the gauges on the dash decided to go haywire. While driving the rpm gauge would go all the way up even though the motor was not reving up that high, also the speedodmeter would go to about 80 when I was actually doing around 45 mph. Then they will go back to normal its like they have a mind of there own. I had my mechanic look at since he is the one who has done all my work on my vehicles but this has just puzzled him. Do you have any idea? Thanks in advance.

Answer
I would take a lok at all the grounds on this van make sure all of then a re clean and tight. Manke sure the cable is not corroded or freyed. make sure your connection at the battery are clean and tight. It sound like a bad connection somewhere. As for the gauges acting up it could be an issue with the engine computer that sends siganls to the speedo head but again if you have a bad ground connection for the engine computer it's just like a home computer garbage in get garbage out. The ground for the engine computer are in a few places under the ignition module and on the engine to transmission studs on the front side of the engine by the radiator.