Dracos

We recently had a storm in the NE, and while driving home, a friend of mine driving a 1988 jeep cherokee laredo had two problems they're trying to fix.

The first is that the car seems to have the bad habit of cutting off randomly. The battery has been tested good, and the alternator is less than a year old and also seems to be good. Other tests have shown the starter to be drawing power even when not in use, and that's being looked into; probably just need some wires replaced. A couple of friends have suggested it might be an issue with the relays in the car... but all of those have been replaced recently. When the car was bought (used, and badly so) the previous owner said that the car "had something in it that would cut it off if it was drawing too much power". So far, this "something" remains an unknown. Does anyone know what might be causing these random shutdowns?

The other is in the back. While driving in the snow, the car began to make very loud "clunking" or "banging" noises. This only happens when the brakes are applied firmly and while going above 15 mph. Gentle braking doesn't cause this to happen. Ideas as to what it might be are the brake pads are done, the drum needs grinding/replacement, or the differential is going/mostly gone (though I had no idea the diff played a part in the breaking process).

Does anyone have ideas as to what might be causing these noises? I'm hoping it's something as simple as ice in the drums, but I have a feeling it's more than that. :P Any advice or suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks in advance guys and gals!

BlueRidgeMark

No.

Bad wires will not cause a motor to draw power when it should not be running. That's just uniformed wild guessing. Ignore it.

A bad relay might. Or a partial short inside the motor or the solenoid (which is a big relay).

How was it determined that the starter is drawing power? What were these tests? (Since most people don't know much about electricity, I'm skeptical of this diagnosis.)

Still could be the relay contacts.

A lot of things could cause that. Bad connections in the ignition circuit, and on and on. With so little info, it's just guessing.

It doesn't, but it could be affected by the braking process. (I hope he doesn't break it!)




Well, that's as wild a guess as I've ever heard.


Probably is. Bad or loose shocks or springs is one thing to look for.

Dracos

It was done at Advanced Auto using the battery tester they have on site. They connected it to the battery, then had me run the car, rev the engine, turn on all electrical devices, etc. After all the testing was done, they got a reading that stated the starter was drawing energy after it was no longer in use. They DID say the solenoid in the starter was probably bad, but they also said the wiring might be worn someplace and be causing the drain as well.


Since as you say most people (including me) aren't familiar with circuitry, maybe you could elaborate on this? Do you think they're dirty, need replacing? How would I go about testing them, or checking to see if they're still good and just dirty, or not working anymore and need replacing?


I'm honestly just looking for some "most likely" reasons. I DO have one thing I can say is at least part of the cause... though I have no idea how to fix it.

For some time now, the headlights have been a cause for making the car cut off. For some months, if I drove for a certain amount of time with them on, the car would shut off. I changed out the headlights and cleaned the contacts, and it didn't really seem to help. The same thing would happen after a certain amount of time (I say "a certain amount of time" because there was no set amount of time before the car would cut off; it just seemed to happen randomly).

In desperation, I disconnected one of the headlights to see if I could at least drive with a single one connected (I do a lot of night driving), and it worked. The car stopped cutting off, and everything was fine. After some time driving like this, a friend and I once again took a look at the headlights and wiring that connected to them. We tried to determine why having both headlights connected would cut the car off, and... we didn't really find anything immediately wrong. I had changed out the relays and circuit breakers and had cleaned the contacts on the all as best I could.

I tried connecting both headlights again, and they worked fine suddenly. No shut offs, no dim lights... nothing. I had been driving for almost half a year with them both connected and no shut off problems, when again recently, they started making the car cut off. At the time, I didn't even think it WAS the headlights, since apparently we had managed to stop the problem, but after the car cutting off again and again, I once more disconnected one headlight, and the shut off problem vanished.

Any ideas what might be causing this? It's driving me crazy, since it's not easy to get to the wire harness near the headlights to examine the wiring... and last time I looked, there was nothing wrong with it.


...Is it? Because apparently, it WAS something to do with it. The sound when braking was only happening in the snow and wet. Once the roads were clear of snow, and the brakes had time to dry... the noise vanished. I can brake as hard as I want now, with no odd sounds, and no differential popping. How would you explain that if not for water getting into the drums? My thoughts are it's time for new brake pads, and the water was able to get in because there's space for it to do so, causing the pads to "skip" inside the drums. That would cause that sound, wouldn't it?

...and stop making fun of my misspellings. I'm trying to get my car fixed, not made fun of. *seriousface*


My suspension, as far as I know, is still the original one. ...scary right? I *know* my leafsprings are on the way out, and am planning on replacing them once the weather warms up some. I can only guess I need a full suspension job in any case, so this is something I'm gonna look into anyway.

Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions. If you have any other help you can give, I would appreciate it.

BlueRidgeMark

Sounds good. Solenoid is the most likely culprit, then.

Assuming they knew what they were doing! It's a gamble with auto parts stores. Some of them are good, some... not so good.



Will try to write more tomorrow - not feeling very well tonight.