Okay, try this one on for size...This is the car in which the AMM just died (an '83 with an M46 and bosch ignition), replaced it yesterday with one from a pick and pull. All is well after the replacement, then, driving home last night, there's a loud bang of some sort, the car stalls, the starter won't do anything but grind, so I bump start it doing about 40 in 3rd. That works, the car drives fine, but the altinator light glows brightly and the parking brake and blub out lights glow softly, the temp and fuel gauges both slowly drop to the bottom, though the fuel gauge ends up hovering around empty (full tank as of that afternoon). Here's the kicker: the turn signals don't work but the hazzards do. Makes it home (4 miles) just fine. Seems to be running fine. Then this morning go out to see if a belt snapped or something and everything seems in order. Start the car and it's absolutly normal. Drive it for a while. Start it again, and this time no dashboard lights come on for the start, drive it about 50 feet and the altinator light comes back on--it's bright but it flickers and nothing else is glowing; the gauges and turn signals do their broken thing again. Does this sound like a dashboard ground gone bad or something more serious? If a dashboard ground, where have they hidden them in that rat's nest that's back there? Why do I never have any bizzare electrical problems in my mechanically enjected '82 with a wiring harness held together for the last three years by spray-on undercoating? This '83 with the LH has gone from trustworthy to POS in 3 days...

Thanks in advance,

--Jon McKeon

'82 and '83 245s, about 500k between 'em