Tonight, i pulled into the garage and shut her off, while walking away, i noticed the antenna did not go down... very strange, opened the door and zero power, no interior lights, nothing, no juice at all. Tried the ignition, nothing, though power came on strong for about 4 seconds then back off, nothing... battery has power though car acts as though it is disconnected. Terminals are clean and tight. Battery ground is solid and tight to frame

Background: this happened once before, several months ago, though after a few hours, it seems to correct itself and I did not think much of it after. I posted at that time, some folks suggested that it might be the ignition, not sure if the ignition would cause a complete end to end power issue like this. Two weeks ago, the alternator went and was replaced with a rebult. The old one was just worn out and the new is working just fine.

thoughts?

 

what year is your car??
Has it been washer recently?
Do you have a hot post cover fitted??
Remove the ground cable at the chassis and clean it .
It is not uncommon for water to get into the rear hatch area and wet the ground connector.
How old is the ignition switch?

 

84 4.7L US Spec 52K mile, orig

Car is dry and has been for weeks, I will check the ground again...

 

I dealt with something eerily similar on Monday evening.
All connections totally clean. Turned it off, went to restart, absolutely no power to anything.
Turned out to be ground strap failure.
Next day, ran down to advance Auto, picked up a short round groundstrap, all power restored instantly, started right up.

Checked it like this. Voltmeter across battery gave 12.8 volts. Voltmeter from battery + to clean shock tower bolt gave 3 volts. Nothing else it could have been.

I stand here looking at this groundstrap and would never have expected it to be insufficient. Heavy, pliable, no damage. Polished ends. Completely dry (though it was raining that day -- high ambient humidity). Bolt connection totally dry. Plastic coating is totally intact. But you can see some corrosion peeking out from the plastic. Ohm meter shows little resistance across cable, but some. On the other hand, its 25 years old. Must degrade/ corrode within the covered web and simply not pass enough electrons. Weird.

Check yours. Or just replace it and see what happens.

I'll buy the right flat strap later. Advance Auto strap was a patch.

 

Thanks!

It was the f'ing ground strap... rotten under plastic. Car is up and running well.