Rain related electrical issue

[bad.moshi]

Hello everybody,

Over the course of the last year or so, I've been experiencing very minor electrical issues when driving in the rain, or shortly after a rainstorm -- sometimes even just in foggy weather.

It started when i noticed that my car would sometimes feel bogged down on acceleration. I would restart and have no problem. Then sometimes the issue would come back after a restart. Eventually it would be fine. It seemed as though my car had a hard time deciding on a gear in the rain, almost like it was trying to shift into OD early. Very early. As in, around 30mph sometimes. I would lose seemingly ALL of my torque.

Later on, throughout the winter, I experienced almost no issue. Then, one day about a month ago, my car wouldn't start. No power. Nothing. No lights, no turn, nothing. No clicking, no power locks, nothing. I replaced the battery to discover that it would start, but a few days later the same thing occurred. Not even trying to turn over in the damp morning, but it would start without issue in the afternoon. I banged the starter once or twice and tightened a few wires and hadn't had a problem since.

Then today as I pulled out to go to work during a thunderstorm, my car stalled but immediately fired up (down for not even half a second, probably). After that, on the drive to work, the radio would intermittently shut off (antenna closing) then start back up (antenna back up).. again for only a second or less. No noticeable engine symptom occurred with the power flash.

On the drive home, however, all hell broke loose. Lights flashed on my dash from ABS to CES, TCC seemed to engage at 40mph. Radio flickered a few times, and it seemed as though every time I pressed the brake pedal, all of my needles would flinch, especially my speedometer. Not by much, maybe only 1mph or so of a flinch, but I noticed. The voltmeter was ok, electrical connections seemed fine when I stopped, nothing overly hot, nothing noticeably wet. It seems to me that it would be some kind of grounding issue, but I thoroughly cleaned the connectors and ground when I had the issue a month ago. Other cars (Lincoln forums) display common issues with a leaking firewall but I haven't noticed water in the car anywhere. Tell me I'm not the only one... My bonneville is just shy of the 175k mark.

Any ideas?

[Jrs3800]

No real ideas, but it seems as if you are dropping power somewhere... Check all of the main maxifuses under the hood, they supply a large part of the power for the inside of the car and the electronics, if any of those pins for the large fuses are corroded or not making good contact you could have issues there... short of that you could be having an issue with the ignition switch on the lower part of the column..

Check those large fuses under the hood first...

[bad.moshi]

Thanks JRS, I believe you're probably right. It started just fine this morning with no issue, but then when I was getting ready to hit the interstate, I turned on my lights and had a weird stutter. Then, later on as I hit the brakes, the car went haywire with lights and binging noises. There were quite a number of clicks from behind the glove compartment, and I believe that is where you'll have me look. I didn't get a chance to check it last night and planned on taking the Jeep to work today, but low-and-behold the lady beat me to it.

[Backhoe]

The clicking reminds me of when I was wiring my boost gauge, and opted to use a ground just ahead of the passenger door in the footwell. I had forgotten the battery was hooked up at this point, and with that existing ground wire disconnected, I came back to the car to find the radio playing and furious clicking behind the glove box, with no key in the IGN.

Probably unrelated, but you never know.

[bad.moshi]

I'm wondering if I may have a crack in the cover of that box. It's strange. This morning was very wet, but by this afternoon it should be dry and warm, and I'd bet Vegas that I don't see one strange bit of activity.