engine stopped? can't get car started..

[AwDawg]

I was coming home from a friends last night, and when I turned a corner to come back to my house I decided I wanted to put the foot down a little to see how quickly I'd hit 60 in my car... well I got to about... I'm thinking 40-45 at around 5000-5500 rpm range, and my RPM's just dropped to 0... lights dimmed and I lost power steering. So I decided to coast into a church parking lot which was near enough, put the car in park and decided to restart it, and the car would not start up anymore... it makes a sound like the starter kicks in and all that fun stuff... but does not do anything. Any ideas? I'm thinking maybe the fuel pump took a crap on me... Anyways its a 95 eclipse gsx automatic with all stock parts.

thanks,
Adam

 

[Korndogg]

*shrug* always good to check the easy sh¡t

get a multimeter/voltmeter and measure the voltage of the battery... if it's below 12V, we can go from there.. if not, it soudns more expensive .. though i don't know

 

[terefic181]

Have you tried the routine things fire and fuel?
Check for spark to the plug.
Do you smell fuel when your trying to crank it?

 

[AwDawg]

well I'm assuming the battery is fine becuase if not my lights and all probably would not have run at full power. I'm running an optima yellow top, so I'm fairly sure it should be fine considering... I have'nt had a chance to get back to the church to try messing with my car.. as it happened at 2:30 a.m. last night and it has been raining out ever since... But I'll be sure to check those a.s.a.p.

 

[AwDawg]

any ideas?

 

[terefic181]

Have you checked the spark and fuel yet?

 

[evotuner]

Originally posted by terefic181
Have you checked the spark and fuel yet?

word. If it was a 1G I would say check the CAS but could possibly be a number of things. Coil pack, ptu, fuel pump???

 

[g0tEclipseD]

Its your alternator

The other night when driving home, My lights dimmed and then car shut off. Battery was new (replaced early that day) had a spare alternator, put it in, and it started right up.

 

[AwDawg]

Well I had my alternator belts break on me before and I lost power steering so of course first thing I looked at when I got out of the car was the alternator's belts... but I thought I remembered when my belts werent on that my car still started... wouldn't it still start if the alternator had a prob?

-Adam

haven't had a chance to check spark and fuel just yet because I had to leave for school... :-/ (college 90 miles from home..) I'll call my dad 1st in the morn and tell him to check them.

well.. I do have a spare alternator too... because the alternator in there was put in about 2 months ago and it is a custom 200 amp alternator from Iraggi for my car stereo use...

 

[Korndogg]

yes, it'd still start and run (..for a few miles, anyway) without your alternator...... if your battery were charged


edit:
and might i add, that today i drove my car 3 miles to get it home without the alternator or AC belts...

 

[g0tEclipseD]

My belts didnt fall off-

I had been working on the car for about 6 hours before with trunk open (trunk light on) which most likely drained my battery. I had about 3.5 volts left when the car shut off. happened right after i turned on head lights

 

[Korndogg]

heh, i dunno what you were doing or what.. running a car with a bad battery can kill the alternator, because the alt requires power to run.. otherwise it burns out.. you said the battery was replaced earlier that day.. if it was bad and you kept charging the battery just to go for a week or whatever.. that could cause a dead alt...

doesn't matter though.. to the question of "would the car start with a dead alternator" the answer is yes, with a charged battery....