Well, I was driving as normal yesterday when my cluster started acting funky. The speedometer needle started to sputter when I accelerated with a little foot behind it. So I started to wonder what was causing it so I was going on an on ramp for the interstate when it completely reset my cluster and my stereo. I was baffled. I've never had any of my vehicles do this to me so I shut off the stereo and started to accelerate again and every time it would sputter the needle and eventually reset the cluster, like when you first start the car. But the motor would still run without shutting off. Well, I get home and park it. Decide later that night to try driving it again. Well, it did the same thing except this time, I was going fairly slow and the car almost died on me, throwing me forward because I was in first gear. But still enough power that when I tried to turn the key, it made the grinding noise whenever you try to start it when it's already started. I drove the car home riding the clutch in case it decided to do that again. Funny thing is, I checked all my main grounds that you can get to without raising the car and they all seem to be fine. I rearranged the positive battery cable because I recently changed the cables for a thicker gauge one and the positive battery cable wasn't facing the right way for the battery. A few people I've talked to say it's possibly a bad ground, maybe the engine block ground? But I haven't had time to raise the car and check that one. Whenever I drive the car normally without getting on it a little bit, it drives fine but the second that I do get on it, it does all the things I described above. I also replaced the alternator with the cables because it's a high output alternator. Anybody else have this issue? Could it be the ground cable to the engine block? Could it be the alternator causing issues? Like most F-Body's, when I purchased mine, it did not have the bolt for the battery tie down, could it possibly be that? Anything at all would be very helpful. I plan on checking the engine block ground in the next day or two so hopefully that might be all it is but I'm not so sure. I also mention that it was extremely cold yesterday, could that have caused the issue? It's in the 60s today so it may of caused a bigger issue?

 

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything about checking the battery. Get it tested. Get the alternator tested too. One (or both) could have gone bad.

Also, replace the battery tie-down bolt. You don't want the battery loose and moving around. In my case, the bolt had corroded and broke when I went to replace my battery so I drilled through the rubber block to add two new stainless lag screws.

 

Yeah, I'll go get the battery checked in the next day or so but it's a little rough to check the alternator right now, it's around 10 degrees right now. But it'll be in the 50s Wednesday, lol. I'm thinking it may be the alternator wires but I'll know for sure when I get it jacked up and look at it. I'm afraid the single wire to the alternator may be frayed or something. Battery may be bad too, it's about 4/5 years old I believe. But surely not.