A few days ago I asked about my electrical woes. The general concensus was I had a bad connection. I looked at both the screw in lugs in the cables and both were stripped. I replaced them and saw a little spark when I connected them which was an improvement. A sign of life. I got in and tried the lights, they worked. I fully expected the engine to turn over when I hit the key. Instead I got a click from the starter and all went dead again. No lights, radio, anything. Right back to square one. So what the Hell zapps all the juice that fast? If you missed the first post the car is an 87 Monte SS with a 350 and an HEI ignition, no computer.
What do you have for a battery charger? I suspect that the new battery was not fully charged when you bought it as most are not. Usually the shop will put it on a quick charger for several minutes and confirm the proper voltage before handing it over to you. A reading of 12v is not necessarily sufficient in all cases and can be misleading. 12v is meant as an average given between 11v indicates a discharged battery up to 14.4v for a fully charged -yes, the range is that tight between good and useless. Get it on a 2 amp trickle charge and leave it on there most of the day perhaps a good 8hrs will bring it up to par. With the lights going dead and the starter clicking its becoming even more apparent to me that the battery is discharged. Check it after it has charged it should be within 13-14.4v but no more, no less and be sure to remove the battery from the car before charging it.
Get a voltmeter and measure the voltage on the battery. What is it reading? Is it close to 12 volts? Or less? If its less weak battery/bad charging system. Jump it. Measure the voltage at the battery with it running. What are you reading? Should be around 14.7 volts. If its less, measure the voltage at the back of your alternator (big stud the red wire is attached to). Voltage stil low? Measure from battery ground to alternator case. Should see 0 volts (you'll have a fraction of a volt, but make note of it anyway). Any voltage here you have a bad ground somewhere (alt to engine, engine/frame, battery/frame, etc). Measure from your battery positive to the alternator output. Same deal. You should not see any voltage. If you do, bad connection. You can repeat the measurements from the battery to the starter for both +ve and -ve runs. Any voltage (check it while cranking) and you have a connection problem. If your battery checks out around 12 volts in the begining of my rambling, do this check first to rule out bad connections or damaged cables. While your messing around with that, physically check your engine to body ground. Bad ground here can usually cause ignition problems. Alex.
It still sounds like a weak connection at the battery. I had this same problem using cables that seemed okay at first glance. I would wiggle them, get them tight (I thought) and everything seemed okay (radio, courtesy lights working fine), then turn the key and click and everything goes dead again. When I went to tighten the cables up again, I noticed that one of the connectors at the battery felt hot. That was a good clue. With lots of screwing around with the old cable, I finally got an okay connection and it started, but I knew the cable was a piece of crap at that point and bought a new one which fixed it permanently. Try messing with the cables again and if you get the same big click and then everything dead, see if the cable feels hot at the post connection. Turn the headlights on and wiggle the connection, you might hear sparks in the connection and you can watch the headlights to see whether you're making a connection or not. For side post batteries, I have seen some where the seal was bad and battery acid oozes out and rots the connection (not just the normal corroded terminals, but actual liquid battery acid dribbling out). That's usually covered under a battery warranty. When you charged the battery, if the charger was hooked up to a battery connection that was flaky, you may not have actually charged it much at all. Take the cables off and hook up some of those small charging posts (if it's a side terminal battery) and hook the charger up to those. Charge it at a slow rate so you won't cook the battery and ruin it. Like 1 or 2 amps overnight. Hook up the charger connectors first, then plug in the battery charger to the wall. That way you won't make a spark near the battery. Then when it's charged, unplug the charger from the wall before unhooking the clamps from the battery, so that you won't make a spark (flammable hydrogen gas bubbling in the battery while it's charging). I'm pretty sure it's still a bad connection at the battery. If you wiggle it around and reconnect it and all the sudden the radio and headlights start working again, then that pretty much proves it. Once you get that connection sorted out, if it still won't start, the radio and courtesy light should still be working. Even a nearly dead battery will still have enough juice to make the courtesy light come on dimly at least. If the courtesy light goes completely dead, it probably means you've lost the connection to the battery again. Good luck. I'm betting it's still just a weak connection at the battery. It's sort of like a fuse. Like there's only a tiny bit of metal to metal contact in the area where there's a weak connection. It's enough of a contact to feed a few amps to run something weak like your radio, but when you try to run a few hundred amps or so to your starter motor, it just burns up.
Your're right about that one, the effect is called "I squared R". Electrical losses to heat are current times current times resistance. Funny but voltage does not come into play, the same problem with your car starter can be like 3000 amp buss work, imagine 3k times 3k times just 2 ohms of resistance, call the result's watts. Anyway you need to find out the problem with help. You can play the radio, lights etc, not much current. Have someone hit the key, see where suddenly there is battery voltage across where there should be none. Like from the starter case to the alternator when you crank etc. Some connection somewhere cant let the amps thru. Also car electrical stuff is made to fail "open circuit" ie you apply the juice it doesn't burn it just doesn't work. BTT
This is a long shot,I had a battery cable that looked god but was junk under the insulation where they put the end on it. cut yours back a little and see if it all green or nice and copper.,as I said the cable looked good till I started pulling the plastic back. try jump starting the car,will it start with a jump? Russ
Back in the late 70,s and into the 80,s GM used aluminum in some of the battery cables. They were notorious for corroding inside the pressed terminals.
Well first off I would like to thank everybody for their input. I HATE electrical problems. Yesterday I went connection by connection and guess what I found? The + lead from the battery to the post on the starter was just a little bit loose. I reached around the headers to check it and it rotated slightly. I thought "You've got to be kidding me." I hopped in and it rolled over. Gave it some gas and it fired right up after sitting there for two months. So I have to drop the exhaust and take off the header to tighten it up but at least it's running. My truck was in the way so I did a celebration burnout in my garage. Hatch was telling me it's pretty simple, take it back to basics and I found a loose connection d'uh . Sorry for making you guys scratch your heads over something so simple but all is well and at least I can drive it out of the garage now to work on the tudor. Thanks again fellas.
The most common place for this to happen is the battery terminals, but you need a complete circuit capable of carrying the starter load. Any connection in that circuit can give you the same symptoms. I had a loose connection on the starter side of the solenoid on a 41 Ford that drove me nuts until I saw a slight arc. The ground cable connection at the engine (it should go directly to the engine or a bracket bolted to the engine.) can be loose or corroded. Check everything in the starter loop. If your cables have the clamp on terminals, shit can them for the direct replacements (both sides). They aren't that expensive. Those clamp on terminals might get you home in a pinch but they are a problem waiting to happen. I bought a rebuilt starter, layed on the 20 deg asphalt parking lot changing it only to hear that click click again. In that case it was the battery terminals. I never forgot that lesson.
Glad you figured it out. Yeah, you should probably junk that old cable and get a new one with solid copper crimped and soldered connections and copper wire. Those clamp on connectors only work for a while until the wire gets all corroded where the wire is clamped. They should really only be used as a temporary fix, because they don't last very long usually compared to a crimped and soldered connection.
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