I have had my 78 corvette for less than a week now, and it has some really bad electrical problems. Actually, I don't think they're anything major, but they are very irritating and causing some bad problems.

The windows don't go up or down anymore. One minute they both work perfectly, and now neither works! It was completely all of a sudden!
Now, the lights on the dash, like the parking brake light, don't work. However, the hi-beams light still works! Woohoo! Also, the instrument dashes no longer work. That includes gas, battery, etc!

I checked all the fuses, and they all seem to be fine. My multimeter is officially broken, and tomorrow I will purchase a new one and check everything. The 30 amp breaker for the windows works fine too. Will check the terminals tomorrow too.

I am out of ideas now, though. Any advice at all would be much appreciated!

The worst part is that one of my windows is down, and I can't put the car in the driveway or even wash it!

If it makes a difference, the car was sitting, only driven occasionally, for about 6 months before I bought it, and the drive home was a 45 min freeway drive and not-so-great roads.

 

I would start with making a new clean ground from your battery. I recently had an electrical ghost that caused issues. I found it was my main bundle of wires on the driver side was sitting on top of my hood pull. It finally rubbed through after 44 years and started to glow red hot and smoke. It is patched up now and no more electrical problems.
These Vettes are bad for grounding issues.

 

These Vettes are bad for grounding issues.[/QUOTE]




When you have a bunch of strange electrical issues the first place I'd look is the ground. That can make everything act in an odd manner. Extra grounding won't hurt anything.

 

Well, that makes a lot of sense! Thank you guys so much, I never would have thought to check the ground! I will look at it this afternoon.
Thanks!

 

Didn't you check out ALL of the 'operations' hardware to make sure it all worked before you bought it? [sorry....rhetorical question; but I needed to make the point for other folks who are thinking about it]

For a car you know nothing about, you need to test/repair/replace power and ground main battery cables, alternator power feed wiring, and ALL chassis ground lines. Doing so eliminates these items from any other operational concerns you may have in the future (as well as fixing some of them now).

 

Yep! Everything worked fine for the first day, as well the week before when I test drove the car. Windows worked great, the gauges all fine, lights all worked. It just started failing all of a sudden when I brought it home. My only guess is that it might have to do with the car sitting for about 6 months. The seller said the radio worked the last time he checked it out, gave me a discount for it no longer working; perhaps that was just a foreshadowing.

Thanks for the tips. My dad's an electrical engineer and is willing to help me out, so hopefully this will lead to my windows and such working again!