Losing Electrical While Driving

Here's the issue, my wife's 96 has been acting up a little bit. A few months back she was losing all electrical a couple of times while driving, engine would shut off out of nowhere. I replaced the CPS and have had no problems since then.

Now, the other day she hit the railroad tracks by our house and lost electrical, radio, engine, everything. Fired right up after she pulled to the side of the ride and did that a couple of times. I figured it may be a lose ground so I cleaned up the ground going to the body off the battery, ground going to the block, cleaned up battery posts, and terminals.

First time driving after this and the engine ran fine but the radio has no power at all. Any ideas?

Thanks

On the front end of the PDC there is a small cover you can open up, underneath there is a couple of power cables held down by nuts, check the nuts for tightness.

Check the high amp fuses for tightness, I usually push them down with my thumb to make sure they were seated all the way. Then pull them one at a time and reinsert them, feeling for resistance as I reseat them again. If they go in too easy, it is a sign the fuse holder may be loose (usually heat damaged). While you have the fuses out hold them up to a light and look for hairline cracks, it happens and the normal heat of the amp flow may flex the ends of the fuse bridge near the crack and temporarily open up the fuse until it cools again (seen it before).

If it is a loose splice you possibly have a some major hunting in front of you. I still haven't found all the grounds for my 96, the dash ground might be a good place to look.

I'm not sure if the two small wire grounds at the dipstick mount (along with the battery ground) are soldered or just crimped into the wire rings. Maybe a corrosion issue at the ground wire end rings if they are just crimped and not soldered.

Let me know what you've found out, I haven't had that issue on my 96 yet and things like this you tend to see again on other vehicle eventually.

Okay great, I will start looking into it within the next few days and I'll let you know what I find.

i had a similar issue with a 97 XJ a few years back. it would "go dead" for only 1 second or less on hard right turns and hard bumps. spent lots of hours following the harness to locate every ground on the vehicle, wiggling every wire while the engine was running.
the ground from the block to the firewall was bad as was a power wire i cant remember where it was, was scorched but the jacket hadnt burned off and some of the strands inside had severed because they were brittle.
i hope you dont come to that.....
sometimes the fix is right under your nose. pull your battery terminals and clean them. even if they feel tight and look ok... corrosion and pitting can do alot of damage inside the clamp on the contact surfaces and you may not realize it.

I have now checked the two bolts coming off the power distribution box and they are tight. I have also checked every fuse in both boxes with a test light. I ran out of time tonight but I will check the fuses for hairline cracks as "8Mud" said. Ran fine today to and from work. Thanks for all of your help, I will let you know what I find.

I guess it would help if you defined "losing all electrical".

Headlamps, brake lights, interior lights?

On my 96 I made a short stop, like three minutes and shut the motor off. Tried to start and all my electrical was dead, completely dead, no lights nothing. Turned out something came loose (or burnt through) inside my battery. First time I've ever seen a battery do that.