All,


While out driving my 1994 NA 850 sedan earlier this afternoon, I noticed that it started to have some issues that have never been seen or encountered before in the 2.5 months that I have owned the car. I bought this 850 from its original owners for $600 because I needed another vehicle to use while keeping the miles off my 1989 740 GL (a low-mileage car at 114k miles).

The 850 is an M56-equipped 5-speed car, and has 199.7k miles and change. The original owners took decent, if not spectacular, care of the car. I have had to do a bunch of work to it in order to make it a reliable daily driver (which it is now) - the thermostat, upper and lower radiator hoses, two motor mounts, and plugs/wires have all been replaced during my brief ownership.

However, something strange and weird starting going on today, and as I mentioned, I have never before experienced this. Here is what happens: If I am approaching a stop sign or a stop light, or want to coast down a hill on the highway, I will shift the car out of gear and into neutral, and let the engine do the braking. When I was approaching a stop light around 1:45 pm this afternoon, I pushed in the clutch and shifted into neutral as usual, but all the warning lights on the dash came on and the engine shut itself off. I safely coasted to a stop, turned the car off, then tried to restart it. It restarted okay. But a mile down the road, I approached another stop light and as usual for me, got the car into neutral. Same thing happened a mile back - all warning lights came on, engine shut off. Once again, I coasted to a stop, turned it off and attempted to restart. It started again just fine.

But here was where it got dicey. I was on Interstate 395 (between Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia) an hour later and was going to get off at the exit near my home. To slow down, I shifted into neutral and immediately, warning lights come on, engine shuts off. This time I was forced to pull off into the shoulder, turn the car off and wait a minute. I started it again, everything is okay.

The car does not stall if I brake normally - that is, I push the brake and clutch pedals at the same time, and at a complete stop, I shift from whatever gear I am in to 1st gear. I seriously think it's the crankshaft position sensor that's causing the stall-outs in neutral. Either that, or it's the fuel injection relay. I mean, this 850 is 22 years old (build date 09/93) so I can expect that stuff will go wrong. But my guesses are the crank position sensor or FI relay.

Please help me out and or offer some suggestions or tips - thanks very much, and as always, it is much appreciated.