So yesterday morning I drove my car 20 miles both ways to a car show, went to my friends house, parked, decided I should park on the other side of the street, wont start. It turns over everytime and some times it even runs for a few seconds but then dies. I tried giving it gas but nothing different happened, it had 3/4 of a tank also.

anyone think they know whats going on? fuel pump?

some times my car takes a couple tries before it starts up when its low on gas.

also you can hear a bunch of relays clicking, bad ground maybe?

heres a video of the dash while trying to start it. you can hear the clicking, the speedo also moves.



another thing is when i take the key out my stereo flashs on and off for a few minutes. this hasnt happened before

the battery light, check engine light and oil lights come on

 

Try the following to test your fuel pump

1985-93 240, jump fuse circuit #4 to #6. with a wire, you are trying to hear the whir noise from the pump.....

 

you have something seriously wrong electrically, maybe a bad ignition switch, maybe a bad ground, something like that... you should sort that out before you do anything else, including fuel pump tests.

important grounds on a 1990 240...
* either side of the relay bracket on the left fender well under the hood.
* center console on the left/forward side of the shifter.
* behind either side of the a/c-switch panel in the middle of the console.
* fuel injection signal ground is on the front attachment of the fuel rail, power ground is at the rear attachment

also check your 'positive terminal', this is where unswitched power is distributed to lots of places, its under a slim black rectangular cover that has a pile of red wires, and is on that relay strip I mentioned first on the left fender.

I use a clean soft pink pencil eraser to clean oxide off electrical contacts, this will remove the dull oxide without stripping any protective metal platings. if you can get some "DeOxit Gold", this is great stuff to put a tiny drop on each connector before reconnecting (theres also a deoxit cleaner spray, which is quite good for cleaning electronic stuff).

 

thanks, ive always had some bad electrical problems with this car, turn signals not working, going through multiple alternators...

anyways, once i have a day off of school /work ill dig into it, thanks for giving me a place to start looking

 

last 240 charging problem I dealt with turned out to be the alternator ground wire. LOOKED good from outside, but when I took it off, was a ball of corrosion underneath. dead giveaway was when I put my volt meter on the B+ and the alternator body, I got 13.8V or whatever, but B+ or battery+ to engine ground or battery - was only 12.6V or whatever (battery voltage).

ground problems can cause all sorts of spurious problems, especially grounds involving the instrument panel and such.

 

Only thing I saw wrong, was that the 25 amp fuse holder wasnt clipped to the relay bracket on the fender, put it back, gave it gas and it started on the 3rd try with no dash lights and has been running for the last 5 min...weird. scared its gonna die on me again though

 

I replaced that stupid fuse holder as the one on our 87 240 was cracking and corroded. I used a marine style one I got at the local boat supply store, and filled it with electric grease to keep things dry inside. I also filled the crimps I used with marine electric grease so they'd last (and I use a ratcheting crimper for this sort of thing).