hi all, my name is steve. i have a 92 sj413 and for the past 2 months i,ve been trying to live with this intermitant starting problem which goes like this...... mostly when startin from cold, the car starts ok with the manual choke from a weber conv. out, it fires up great, i select reverse to manoeuvre in my drive and the engine dies and all ignition lights go out. i have to then turn ignition on and off a number of times until lights come back on then i know it will start again, if they dont come on it will still turn over but wont fire up. sometimes then when i,m driving along i can have the heater on, the side lights on and the wipers on but when i approach a junction and operate my indicator to turn the same thing happens, the engine dies the ignition lights go out and once again it wont start. this prob is as you can imagine driving me NUTS!! to make matters worse it can run fine for days after sometimes even a week then for no reason it does it again. i,ve tried to solve this by replacing the distibutor and the coil, a new dizzy cap and new rotar arm new plug leads and coil lead i,ve took off the earth wires one by one with the ignition on to re-enact what happens with the ignition lights but no joy, ive wiggled the key in ignition barrel in something was amiss. please guys, any ideas? please b4 the men in the green van come to take me to the asylum, wait.......theres someone at the door now!

Smells to me like a bad ground ... check/clean them ALL ...
I think the FSM has a diagram showing all the grounding points ...

ok, maybe this will help, in my 94 ford f150, i had the trans rebuilt, and as soon as i put it back in, i had no reverse, meaning that when i put it into gear "reverse", it would start dieseling and die, all lights would go off and on, and then i could restart it again, i know ur frustration........ if i put it into reverse, then held the brake and hit the gas, it would sometimes be ok, i was told it was a sensor in the trans that the person who rebuilt the trans had screwed up or something, i would have your transmission checked out, and see where that takes u, hope this helps.....  Matt

Fuseable link on the positive side of the battery (Could be weak / bad connection)

Grounds Grounds Grounds

Reaffirm both battery connections are in top condition.  Ground from battery to the lower starter bolt or bell housing bolt.  (Jeep / Chevy guys will move it to the frame by mistake)

As mentioned about the reverse switch and 5th gears switch, Ya don't want to confuse them.

Sounds like somthing is killing the circuit the fuseable link is on.  Did someone eleminate the fusabel link and install a self resetting breaker?

Is your ignition switch funky?  The key tumbler and ignition switch are actuall two seperate devices.

sounds like them darn sammy goblin critters are at it again

My first thought is the grounds also.  Have you checked your battery voltage?  If it's too low it can give you problems.

I knew of a car once that had a broken wirer once.  It would make contact when the engine was in park, but as soon as you placed it into rev.  The engine would torque and rotate breaking the conection and die.  You then could put it in park and start it back up.

So, after checking the grounds, move onto the power side.

Good luck

thanx for the responses, i disconnected each earth to see if i could replicate the ignition lights off and the engine to still turn over but i could,nt, i can,t help but feel theres a connection between the reversing proceedure and the using of the indicator, but what! i understand that theres a little box thing under the glovebox next to the fuses, what is this and what does it do? i,ve taken the battery con,s off and cleaned them as part of my check list, it didn,t solve it. i love my zuk but this is pushing me to the edge
steve

First~  Unplug your reverse switch and 5th gear switch.   Then try running with them disconnected.

Next ~ Set up a test lightn and duplicate the problem.

Techs here use a testlight that is hard wired and call it a rat.  When the problem occures the rat will tell ya.   You could use simple thin gauge wire and a simple LED.   Check the ground, hot, ignition ect.  All done safely while underway. 

I like the broken wire theory that blknight87 suggested above. Keep a voltage tester with you and next time it does it don't try to re-start it, start tracing wires. You could also trace the wiring diagram back and find the point where the systems which are loosing power, lights, engine, etc. get their power from. This is probably where your short is.

The wonderful folks at Suzuki may have the answer for you in a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB).

I have been spending the last 6 days getting them ready to go online at the FAQ (see link below) but this is the second post that I have read with a similar problem.

So...

Here is the link to the TSB on this very subject:

http://www.acksfaq.com/TSBs/TS_2-07_11080_Engine_Stalling_loss_of_Ignition_spark.pdf

Hopefully, by next Sunday, I'll have all the TSBs available in a searchable form making the total number of links available a somewhere over 360!

hi guy,s thanx for the responses, i think ive found the problem, it was infact the ignition barrel, i took it apart and cleaned the contacts 2 weeks ago and have had no problems since, looks like this could have been it. till the next problem appears!!!!