So my sister's mustang only starts when it wants too. Sometimes everything works fine. Sometimes.........Open the door and the light is on and everything but when you turn on the headlights everything dims and quits working (like the power seat). Put the key in the ignition and turn it "on" and all the dash lights come on. with the headlights on everything works normal. Not like before when the key wasn't in. Turn the key and everything goes black.

Then she tows it to the dealer and it starts fine. gets it home and it takes a fat one.

She is just giving it to me and hoping I can fix it. I'm pretty handy I have lifted my on pickup and always do my own maintenance. Just wanna get a good place to start from. It would really help alot. She's in med school and can't afford the dealer fixin it anyway.

HELP!!!!

 

I'd start at the column somewhere. Look for a loose connection on the harness behind the wheel.

 

Oh just to add, when it starts, it starts. When it doesn't, well no cranking or trying, just everything goes black when you turn the key. The battery was checked out by the machine at the auto-parts store and its A-OK.....

anyone?

 

Yeah, do what Matt said...

hate to say it, but really sounds like there is going to be an issue somewhere in the wiring harness or loose connection(s)

 

Sounds to me like a bad connection. I'd be willing to bet that there is either severe corrosion where it connects to the starter, battery, alternator, or main underhood fuse panel. I'd also check all grounds on the vehicle.

The ONLY other thing I can think of is, that if your sister is like most girls, does she have a lot of **** on her key chain? If so, this causes stress on the ignition cylinder, which in turn wears out the contact from the switch to the cylinder.

 

Good start. Yeah she probably has a ton of shizer on her keys........

I'll dissect the column and the dash after I check all the connections. Where are the grounds? Any tips on where to check for loose connections?

 

When you pop the plastic trim off the steering column, there are two (if I'm remembering right) clip style connections on the harness that you can see. Check both.
(**Disclaimer, I might be thinking the #2 because I've have my Explorer column apart a lot lately doing wiring on the column).

 

+1 to what everyone said about bad connections and the ignition cylinder.

Also when working on the car, always disconnect the bat, you dont want an airbag going off in your face.

When I had this problem (Well the car wouldnt take a tune) I quickly figured that it was the cable from the fuse box to the Alt.

It was so corroded that it just started falling apart when I cut the sheathing.

After that was fixed it took a tune perfectly.

Good luck.


-Eric-

 

So I got the car from my sister and I was trying to get it to start just long enough to get it on the trailer. Its started once. I was wiggling the light switch and it fired right up. So like an idiot I turned it off and removed the light switch and then it went totally black nothing worked. Then I found that if I wiggled the ignition where the key goes it I could get everything back for a sec but I never got it to turn over just a click.

So here's what I found. I'm going over the wires completely tomorrow but just thought I'd update so you guys would know I'm dedicated to posting about this.

I would get dashlights and a click from the starter solenoid when I went for a start. But no start. Sometime when wiggling the ignition or the light switch something would cause such a draw the whole freakin car went black. I removed the light switch just to see if that was the component causing the problem and it was totally dead then I got the dashlights back by wiggling the ignition switch.

I took apart the whole dash wiggling and inspecting everything. It all looked good. The car went from black to dashlights with no start again when started to remove the negative battery post. Someone replaced the positive wires thinking that would fix it. I just have this feeling its a ground. I have had some bad grounds cause funny shizer to happen. This thing has some major gremlins. I'm gonna fix this sucker though.

Any Thoughts????

 

well you kinda answered the problem your self if wiggling the ignition made intermitant power contact there's obviously a bad wire/connection in the column