Driving the '66 4-4-2 home on Saturday evening, I turned on the headlights. And the car instantly quit. No electric at all, acted as though it had no battery. Even jumped to a good battery, zero, zip, nada.

45 minutes later, jumper cables long disconnected, with a tow truck confirmed, it decided to come back to life. I fired it up and drove it home without issue. The battery, and continuity in both the positive and negative cables, test A-OK, and no issues driving it around yesterday, with lots of headlight on-offs, with and without brights (brights were "on" when it quit).

Ideas? I was thinking intermittent battery failure, although even with the jumper cables connected, there was still nothing. And, as far as I know, no alien spacecraft hit me with an electromagnetic pulse.

 

If it was a battery issue, your car should have kept running from the alternator even with the battery disconnected. I would suspect an issue in the ignition system. Possibly the switch, or the NSS.

 

Bad ground connection?

 

Check the bulkhead connectors on the drivers side firewall and the connection on the horn relay power stud..

 

Bad connection at the battery or battery cables. Check both ends. If it has fuse links check them.

 

NSS?
All is well on the + stud at the horn.
I'll scope the bulkhead next.
Weird that even with the jumper cables on the battery cable ends, nothin'.

 

NSS = neutral safety switch

 

Not that weird as the main power goes from the horn relay through the bulkhead connector to a spice and then to ignition switch, fuse box, light switch, etc...

 

I don't think '66 manual's had a NSS.

 

No, it did not, I was thinking he may have an auto tranny.

 

No manual transmission cars ever had an NSS. They had a CLUTCH START SWITCH that had nothing to do with which gear the trans was in at the time. And yes, Olds did not start using a CSS until the 1969 model year.