3.2 loses power at speed

[jbirkett]

I am experiencing a problem where I suddenly lose power while at speed. It makes no difference what gear or rpm or whether under acceleration, I suddenly lose power. I have change the DME relay and found no difference.

I have tried a few things. After the loss of power I still have lights radio and all the usual electrical indicators are normal. I turn the key off and then restart the engine. I have not had any case where the engine will not crank and restart as normal. I have tried turning the key to the left and then back to the right. It appears to catch momentarily but will not stay running. Only after turning the key completely off with it restart but does so normally.

I can find no lose wires and would think if it was something overheating it would take longer to restart. I don't let it cool down before attempting a restart.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
John

[ischmitz]

Are you implying that only cycling the key to fully off restores power when it happens? If so it could be a bad ignition switch. The electric part is sandwiched to the mechanic (tumbler) part and actuated by a little shaft. Maybe it is worn out.

Do a search. The electric part can be changed without removing the entire switch from what I have read here.

Cheers,
Ingo

[jbirkett]

Thanks for the reply. I did some searching but mostly what I found was similar except no restarting. My thoughts were working toward the switch also, guess just looking for some verification that I might be on the right track. I just found today when test driving that I had to move to total off position before it would restart. Strange that this started to happen although the car had been sitting a while before happening the first time.

Talk about blood running thin when this happened on a narrow road at about MPH with no easy runoff and an 18 wheel dump truck on your tail.

Thanks for the help.
John