Later today (and I took a few pics), I discovered if I pulled up, from the underside of the positive battery connection at the fuse box, it rocks, from side to side - the whole fuse box a little.
Is this normal?
And those electrical connections that are in front of the fuse box (they have cooling / heat extractor veins, and have their own black plastic cover) - also rock from side to side a little.
Is that okay too?
I then started the car and all was fine! It ran great. So maybe a loose connection under there somewhere? Unless this was a coincidence?

 

Thank you! Yes, I watched this entire video about 2 weeks ago. Maybe I should do what he did.
Funny thing, but back then, the car was working fine again.

 

 

Intermittent means sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

The ECM and TCM are held loosley, movement OK. Wobbly fuse box is not OK, it is what the video is all about.

 

Okay. I just completed the R&R of the fuse box "top." I did everything in Steve's ( SteveAZ711 ) 19 minute video.
But, with the battery disconnected in the back of the Chevy, I closed the tailgate. After the fuse box work was done, I went to re-attach the battery cable and couldn't get the tailgate open.
I had shut it earlier because I had to leave on an errand.
Anyway, I went in from the back doors and connected the cable. At least I had the rear floor cover (and cargo tray) raised up into the upper, hide-the-cargo position!
It was a brief,:"Oh crap!" moment.
Okay well, I'll drive the vehicle tomorrow to see if this fixed the problem. At least the car acted, and drove fine, once around the block right after I completed the fuse box work.
I see someone mentioned a pair of 2009 GM Service Bulletins on HHR electrical issues. TSB # 09-06-03-004 and TSB #07-08-45-003.
Does anyone know what they covered?
Thanks.

 

There is an official TSB thread on here somewhere, the search sucks now.. I believe one of those is what you did.

 

Okay, thanks. Now this morning, the Chevy's gauges went crazy again, along with no power steering (again). I finally got it where it had just a "check engine" light,by restarting it a few times. My OBD reader came up with all "Fails" (again) so I couldn't get an error codes. I drove it to my mechanic and left it there. Stay tuned.
Someone before me had been inside that fuse box too. Some hold-down tabs were broken and there were hand-written marks in various places, unless they were factory? My mechanic thought so.
Wow, I hope these 2 pics are not too large here.



This is getting real old for me

 

The gray lines are probably factory.
Going to be all fails immediately after a clear. Everything has to run again.

You might try the same thing on the ECM. Grease, that is.

hellshotrod has a few used fuse boxes for cheap; you might PM him.

Remember the rolled up towel over the tailgate latch next time. Or a 9 volt battery hooked up like a jumpstart will save the contortionist act.

 

Thanks for the tip on the used fuse boxes! My mechanic just called me. He said it's an oil-saturated (my wording) transmission computer sensor of some kind. It's probably not a recent problem so it was happening before I bought the HHR in late June, 2018. He said, if he doesn't have to replace any parts, the bill will be minimum $500 to $700. If parts, like a wiring harness are replaced, it's going to be $2000 to $2800!
He's still looking for the source of the oil leak. What am I going to do? It's a loaded 2006 HHR 2LT, automatic.

 

$500-$700 and no parts ? So that's all labor ? What exactly are they planning to do at that labor price ? Gold plate the wiring harness ?
Sorry, but that's just an outrageous price for an estimate.