Last night, I parked my fickle '95 at my friend's house. The whole month of January it didn't run at all because of the ignition coil, a battery, and the computer. Got all 3 replaced, now I think the brand new computer is dead. This morning, the battery is charged and ready to go, and I even jumped it with my parents' Jeep. I can turn it to accessory or on with no problem, but as soon as I try to crank it, there's an audible click and everything electrical dies for a few minutes. Then, it all comes back and the clock is reset, but trying to crank again does the same thing. What is it this time? I'm about to just get a trade-in on it and call it quits with this damn car

 

ignition switch possibly.

 

After talking with some friends, I considered that it might be a short somewhere, but I don't know where to even begin myself and don't have the money to have it taken care of.

 

I had that problem (click-everything goes dead) and it was corrosion on the battery cables. Took a Dremel/wire brush attachment to it and no more problems. Just a thought.

 

Check the battery connections first. Start with the simple stuff. Make sure to clean them well and make sure they are tight. As for the clock turning off and resetting? It only does that when it loses power. If you have alot of corrosion between the battery terminals it could cause insufficient power to be drawn from the battery, and when you try to start it the starter will draw all available power and kill everything else. If the connections are fine, I think you're gonna start hunting a faulty ignition switch. To test it you can peel off the steering column cover and jump 12 volts from the battery with a long jumper wire (fused of course) and if it turns the starter, it would seem you have a bad ignition switch.

 

the same issue with my 96 f150, it would do that every 6 months. id always have to strip the cables back a inch or two and put the connectors back on and itd fire right up.

 

The contacts were just a little grimy, I just got worried about the worst case scenario lol.