Help! 98 Nissan Altima is "dead"

first make sure you are getting battery power to the engine and system... turn on the lights and wipers and radio... then try to start the car. the dome light should go out if your connection is bad. when you took off intake you may have loosen up the negative from the battery. if still nothing it may be your starter selonoid not making connection. if you have good battery power to the starter terminals you may try to energise the starter and be careful... by jumper ing the start terminal to the big fat wire batter y wire. make sure you are in park and parking brake set.

if starter wont operate.... you know what the problem is. most auto part stores will test the starter for free... but you have to remove it and take it in for them to test. good luck.

ps: i had this problem and found out was a bad battery connection... car would not start but i could jump from another battery and it would start. terminal had corrosion and make a poor connection.

yaku85 wrote in news:1190582743.728406.210130 @n39g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

You may have blown somthing. You say you checked the fuses. But how about the fusable links??

Disasemmble the stearing column shroud and the metal shield under it. Then check for voltage at the ignition switch. It is also entirly possible that you burned a contact in the ignition switch. But it is a remote possibility, I think that a fusible link would go first.

Thanks for the response. Actually the car had no power whatsoever. The dashboard, radio, dome light wouldn't work at all. However, I had a mechanic take a look at the wiring. He found that the wiring connection around the starter had dislodged and this caused the loss of electrical power. So, you were definitely were on the right track.

Thanks for the response, I did check all fuses and fusible links and they were all intact. That had perplexed me, so in my desperation I called a mechanic and he found that the wiring connection around the starter had dislodged and caused a disconnect in the circuit.