Hello all, Every few years I throw this question out to the group and fish for ideas, but the problem persists.
Often (whenever I'm about to say it correlates with dampness or cold or time between startups, it happens or doesn't happen when it shouldn't) the engine will fire, then die immediately. The tach will start flicking like crazy. I'll go through this a few times, and finally the engine will stay running and idle rough while the tach continues to jump around. Then after a minute or so all is well. Sometimes the starter will bog just as the engine is about the fire.
Here's what sort of works: A little: cleaning all coil posts and connections A fair bit: ground wire from negative battery terminal to tranny housing, as per Bentley manual.
The problem got fair bit better after I put a new ground wire on the other day. I had shaky continuity between negative battery terminal, engine block, and transmission housing. I may try a ground wire directly from the point where the battery negative cable joins the engine block, to the transmission housing.
On a new car, should your ohmmeter show continuity between all parts of the frame, and the engine and trans? With all the rust on mine, you're lucky to get continuity between the ground strap mounting post on the battery tray, and the rest of the battery tray.
Could a bad ground circuit cause my problem?
Thanks Theo