Yesterday, cruising at 55 with the window down, I heard a kind of sparking or snapping sound that seemed to be coming from under the car. It went away when I eased up on the accelerator, and I haven't heard it again. Pretty quickly after that, the battery light came on. Nothing else untoward happened until I pressed the clutch to shift down for an off-ramp, at which point the engine revved up to about 4000 rpm until I realized what was happening and let up on the clutch.

As soon as I put it back in gear, it pulled the engine back down, and I was able to get home that way. If I get it down to first gear and brake down to idle speed, then I can press the clutch and it'll continue to idle just fine. It's not a problem until I get up to 20-30 mph and hit the clutch again, then it revs way up.

Today I drove it around some more to see if I could tell anything else, and eventually the radio and gauges stopped working and it died. So I'm guessing that means either the alternator is dead and it was running on battery, or there's a bad short somewhere when the key is on. So I'm going to get the alternator tested. But does anyone know if a bad alternator (or a short) could cause the revving-on-clutch problem I'm having? Since they happened at the same time, they have to be related, but I don't know where to look for the connection.

Thanks!

 

sounds like maybe you threw a belt. and maybe a vaccume leak.

 

You were right, it was the alternator belt. When the belt went, apparently it knocked a 4-pin connector loose. I don't know what that connector does, but once I replaced the belts and plugged it back together, that eliminated the revving. Thanks for the help.