Electrical Problem?

[Colin]

Back story - 3.1L V6 block rebuilt back in March 2008. Just replaced starter, alternator, battery, plugs (nothing abnormal about old plugs) and wires. It ran great for a few days and now it dies intermittently. When you turn the key to accessory the voltage is pretty low (in or just past the yellow) and the starter makes a click like someone putting a stick in a fan. If you turn the key to 'Off' and then over again it'll do the same thing until enough repeats of this process and then it starts (but has a hard time doing so even still). My wife said the radio shorts out (turns completely off and then on again) which is news to me so I pulled the fuse for it. When it does run it runs pretty well (easy, normal sounding starts and steady idle @ 650 RPM). I've also cleaned the IAC valve and port. I had Advance Auto test it (immediately after alternator and battery but before plugs and wires) and it printed out a paper that said my charging system was bad but the guy doing the test said it was "on the high end but not abnormal"). I've kinda' reached my wits end and I'm wondering if anyone has any other suggestions. Thanks in advance for the help.

[Colin]

Re: Electrical Problem?

I have a suspect headlight/parking light switch (I've had 2 pennies in the space to bend the switch enough to touch the metal prongs) so - with the car off - I took it out and hooked everything up. I then put the switch back in place and tried to turn the lights on and nothing. So when I pushed the switch off, the dome light turned off and the car was dead. By accident, I rocked the car and I heard the relays and stuff start clicking (like if you had just hooked the battery back up) and it was alive again. I could not - however - kill the car again by the same method. I hooked everything back up and put the switch back in place and everything back to normal, but when I hooked the battery up, there was a rhythmic clicking noise I determined to be the headlight motors. I disconnected those and tried all the same stuff (killing the connection using the headlight switch, rocking the car to bring it back, etc). I'm thinking it's the headlight switch, but I'm not sure why. Anyone have a guess?

[3.4 slow to go]

Re: Electrical Problem?

are your windows giving you grief? just thinking if it's a BCM issue