93 Accord wagon, auto, 122,000 miles only recent work I've done on it is to replace an o-ring on the distributor a couple of weeks ago. Cruising along at 70 or so, the speedometer drops instantly to 0, then the tach instantly drops to 0, bounces a few times then stays at 0. Radio soon fades and I get a few misses in the engine. I shut the AC down and engines smooths out for a mile or so (come on baby, get me home!) but then the missing gets worse and I eventually pull over. Shut it off and try to re-start and in sounds like the battery is dead and I have a slight wire burning smell under the hood-did not notice in the cabin. Got towed home.

I first thought I might have a bad ground in the dash panel but now think there's a short somewhere. Total time from first symptom to dead battery was maybe 10 minutes (fairly new battery -always seemed fully charged) so it must be a fairly big short - maybe?

Anyhow - where should I start looking? I'm thinking of pulling all of the fuses and then check for a short to ground as I replace each one.

Thanks

Just noticed my signature says 92 Accord - I sold that one at 260,000 and found my 93 with 119,000 - body in great shape, mechanicals questionable - I'm hopefully getting that straightened out.

 

chk around the alternator area,, almost sounds like an alternator issue

 

Thanks - I'll start there.

 

You were right - bad alternator. Looks like my warning light is out so I didn't notice. That will probably be harder to fix than the alternator!

Thanks again.