My 81 244 has had a series of electrical problems lately... bear with me.

First hint was the clock losing time periodically. It then worked for a while just fine.

Next the dashboard lights wouldn't turn on if the radio, defroster, and fan were all on or similar load. Turning some things off and then the light on worked, at which point I could turn the other things on and everything worked. Hmm.

All the while my idiot lights would lead me to belive that I've got a headlight, blinker, and/or brake light out while none of these are broken. This problem has been around for months and may or may not be related.

All this was fine by me as the car got me from place to place. Then the car wouldn't start. Tried a jumpstart and after SEVERAL attempts got it to turn on but it would only run for maybe a minute then quit. I suspected the fuel pump's electrical connection which was just fine. Cleaned the terminals and the car ran fine. The next day it wouldn't start again. Replaced fuel and air filters but problem continued to come and go. I believe there was a lack of power to the fuel pump because several tries later there was no pressure on the gas pedal.

It's worked for about a week now but I didn't do a thing to actually fix it!

Triple checked all fuses, cleaned their contacts, cleaned main relay contacts... couldn't track the problem down. Checked 25A fuse under hood and it's good.

Currently the car has been running. Starts right up and runs as well as ever, but now I have no radio, no clock, no dome light. I think that's all that won't work. Cigarette lighter works, fans and all that, dash light.

In the process of trying to fix all this I found my voltage regulator, connected to absolutely nothing and having collected cobwebs. I've never seen it hooked up to anything since I got the car and there are no wires that fit it.
Could it be that the alt. was replaced at some point with one that has an internal regulator? Would this have anything to do with the aforementioned problems? I can't see how it would?

Is there an inline fuse for the radio, clock, etc that I've overlooked?

Would a broken fuel pump relay cause all these problems? I inspected mine and it looks as good as new, with clean contacts and visually clean and solid solder points. Or the main relay? It looked considerably worse and the contacts were corroded. I'm not sure how to test whether or not either relay is the cause.

Again all fuses are great.

All these problems arose throughout a long ice storm so plenty of moisture and temperature fluctuations. It's been nice out and the car has (in some respects) behaved better. Fuel pump shows no signs of weakness when driving. I really suspect an electrical fault.

Please help if you can.
Thanks,
Mike