Electrical gremlins

[LarryM]

I have a 1987 Platinum in good shape everything works, car runs great except....

I have started to have an electric issue, there will be a flash of the seat belt light on the dash and then the radio cuts out for 3 or 4 seconds and then comes back on. It is often correlated with using the brake pedal, but if I am on a controlled access road where I don't use the brakes, then it will still happen periodically - as often as every 60 sec. (?) It seems worse when it is raining, so I suspect a poor ground, but have not been able to locate one - the car is garaged all the time, and while I don't drive it in the snow, I commonly drive it in the rain. I disconnected the seat belt module under the dash, passenger side, but while the seat belt light did not flash, the loss of power to the radio was still happening. The rest of the car seems ok, although sometimes it seems there is a general hesitation when the seat belt light flashes even if the radio is off. I know these things can be hard to solve, but wow is it irritating.

LarryM

[Gubi]

Hey Larry. When a similar thing happened to me on the Spider, it turned out to be just a bad battery connection. The voltage would intermittently drop which would cause a glowing seat belt light and funky running. Easy first step would be to clean and tighten the connections at the battery. Also the ground connections from the negative terminal - there's one on the block and one at the front of the engine compartment.

How do you like the Elan? I've always thought those were sharp looking little cars.

[LarryM]

Thanks will try that.

The Lotus is also a a great car, fiber glass body, 166 hp DOHC engine - maybe not quite as much fun to drive as the alfas, but it will settle you into the back of your seat without much difficulty.

LarryM