need help with electrical gremlins

[SVO42]

Last night on my way home from work, a few dash lights and the radio flickered when I hit a bump--only happened twice and seemed fine after that. After I got home I did a few things and then went to the store--no problems. Today I go out to start my X when nothings happens. I turn the key on to START and nothing. The radio had switched to being off and was on a default station. It was acting like something had been left on all night and drained the battery.

I got my charger/starter and put it on the battery. Its quick test showed the battery was charged. WTF? It wouldn't crank the starter. So then I set the charger to its jump-start setting (it'll detect the cranking current draw and throw 75 amps at the battery). Then the X fired right up. Not all was still well--the tach wasn't showing anything, and then the CHECK ENGINE light came on. I shut it off and hooked up my code scanner to no avail because it didn't act properly--something wrong with the X? I try to start it again (without the charger's help) and it fired right up, the tach worked, and there was no CEL.

Any ideas about what's going on here? I put an aftermarket stereo in it about a month ago and was **** about wiring it up right. That's the only electrical tampering I've done with it.

 

[Rhett]

Alternator, perhaps? I've seen vehicles do strange things when the alt was going out.
Sometimes run, sometimes not. Sometimes start, sometimes not. And with all this hot weather we've been having, that's the hard time on charging systems...

 

[camaro_guy_z28]

Any luck yet?

I just realized that this is post #100 for me, opening another beer. Love the site. Thanks

 

[SVO42]

Mmm, beer.

The X was dead when I left work, thakfully I got a jump from a coworker. I shut it off when I got home and tried to restart it-DEAD. I took the battery out of my SVO and dropped it in (didn't quite fit right, was too small, but it worked). I hooked it up and the X fired right up with no weird stuff!

I went to Sears and got a new battery today and all is well, other than the heat making me sweat buckets. I'm really tired of all this hot weather. I really need an air conditioned shop.