94 Electric Problem? thanks for any advice

Two educated guesses here, before your mechanic starts replacing the whole electrical system:

My first guess is that your alternator is going bad, either the brushes, or the regulator. If you have a volt guage you can see this, if you don't buy an inexpensive *digital* meter and hook it up to something where you can see it while driving.

Second guess, due to the weird things happening: ground. You could be losing a ground somewhere, and from what you say it is some common point in the car (i.e. many things are grounded there)

Behind the kick panel on the driver's side (assuming you're in America, that is...)is a fuse block. The fuse block is grounded to the body by a bolt. On two of my older cars, this bolt has come loose. You can try to tighten it and see if this has any effect. If it starts doing these things at a later time again, replace the bolt, and use a nut to secure it to the body. BTW, the bolt is generally at the bottom of the fuse block.

Also, check the ground to the fuse block under the hood, the ground from the battery (esp if it's corroded) and various grounding straps under the hood. Look for that 'green' corrosion. If it at the end of a connector or on the battery terminal, clean it, sand it, coat it with grease, connect it and coat it with grease again.

Good luck! Grounding problems are a PITA!!!

thanks very much for the quick response and your time! worst comes to worse I'll print out the note and hand it to my mechanic to keep him on his toes!

BF

It could be a simple fix as Hachi said but diagnosis of the alternator is a free test when shopping for a battery, it takes just a few minutes.

That 'stuttering' effect can be a symptom of an inadequate battery supply. As the cold-filaments in the light-bulbs draw extra current for the first few milliseconds, the less than solid battery supply starts to drop, thus causing other circuits to falter (during that time),......I'd be checking your battery connections are clean and tight. Intermittant connections can cause the car to run on the alternator alone for short periods. The alternator is no-where near as good a supply for current surges as the battery.

Jason

I was thinking that it could be something simple like the battery. I've been through alternator problems before and there's starting problems and stuff I haven't encountered.

BF

to worse I'll print out the note and hand it to my mechanic to keep him on his toes!>>>>

I hope you don't do that, or I hope that the mechanic doesn't 'need' this info.

(1) a internally shorting or opening battery or (2) a loose main connection either battery pos., neg, alternator post, or chassis ground.

Fuse boxes don't need to be grounded. They are much more efficient when insulated. Atleast in the case of your 94 Camry. Toyota runs wired grounds from several grounding points and junctions around the body to every individual device that needs ground to operate. There are VERY few devices that ground directly to the body. Your starter comes to mind. But as much as a common grounding point can cause a bizarre series of symptoms, it takes a major powerpoint (as listed above) to cause so many symptoms, especially the engine stumble. Were talking a total system voltage available to the ECU and ign coil of < 9 volts {with the alt. charging}!

It's possible you have a bad alternator. But you need to have some other problem along with it for these symptoms to occur. Usually Nipondenso alternators fail because the brushes wear out. This causes the charge light to come on and the battery to slowly wear down. I can't remember the last Nipon alt that failed for another reason, except a couple remans. Remans can have subpar regulators and rectifier components though.

Toyota MDT in MO

Sorry, I got my >>>>s out of place.

Toyota MDT in MO

this isnt typical on any toyota. but the camry had a problem with broken wires on the trunk hindge and in the door jams. i doesnt seem to be the case here but you never know

Generally, on a Toyota (or Nissan, too) the Battery and Brake warning lights *both* light up or flash!

the lens on the trunk - the clear part that they took off the later models that is right on the trunk not the lights - is broken and water gets in it so you might have something there.