Auto battery question

You are supposed to check the electrolyte level in your battery - monthly for standard issue, every six months for "no water" batteries. Use only distilled water for makeup. Carefully wipe the electrolyte caps, battery top, and electrodes. Smear silicone grease on the electrodes to prevent corrosion (especially the hot terminal).

The system is designed to have the battery attached as buffer. Start the good car. Hook the hot sides with the jumpers then hook the grounds. Race the good car's engine as you start the dead car. Unless the dead battery is shorted the car will continue to run. Drive down to Sears, have your diodes checked, and buy the biggest DieHard that will fit. A DieHard will give you up to 8 years of service if you treat it well. (What does that say about the projected longetivity of hybrid autos?)

If you are in Europe you might want to check before hookup that both cars use the sane sign convention for ground. English ignition electronics are diagnostic of how far the Industrial Revoluton penetrated inot the mob.

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Would be helpful to know the make/model/year of your vehicle. Advice for a 53 Chevy might be diffrerent than for a 2004 Peterbuilt.

If the starter is getting juice and the motor is locked, you'll know it. Modern cars have a bunch of interlocks on the gear shift, clutch etc. to prevent you starting the car unsafely.

I thought I had a dead starter once. Turned out that I wasn't depressing the clutch far enough to hit the starter enable switch.

If your headlights didn't dim when you hit the starter button, your battery being dead wasn't the immediate cause of your original problem. mike

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Hi Sam, Anytime you jump start another vehicle with yours you risk damage to your alternator. You don't know what kind of problems caused the dead battery condition. Most of the time the dead car starts and you are on your way, but it is possible to damage your regulator, or diodes if the conditions are right. As for hooking them to the cables, the only additional risk is shorting to chassis and risking damage to the system. You would accomplish nothing by this anyway, your car wouldn't run long after he removed his battery. See if your dead battery will take a charge, if not, get a new one and drive the car to have the charging system checked. Check also for current draw when the car is off. As an aside, it is quite common for a battery to operate the electronics but not start the car. The electronics take relatively low current that the battery usually can still supply. The connections should be checked first, this is the most common cause. Regards, Tom

I had similar problem and found one of the battery cables (don't recall which) was corroded so badly a wire was interrupted. The tail end of the cable had a couple other wires going going different places??????????

Oh, the cable was corroded inside the protective sheath, not between terminal and the round connector. The battery had been using a lot of water, but I ignored it. Guess the fumes did their number.

you start the secondcar, you connect the leads to the battery in the first car, you connect the leads to the battery in the second car (with a positive terminal disconnected). you start the engine in the second car.

* *>A few days ago, my car wouldn't start. The dashboard *> electronics were all working, so I figured it's a *> dying battery. I didn't have time to fix it, so the *> car sat in the street. (I have another vehicle) *> *> This morning, the battery was totally dead. No electric *> power. I asked a neighbor for a jump start, we hooked *> it up, and again the starter wouldn't respond. However, *> the electronics were operating, so it's not the regulator or anything. *> *> I thought, oh oh, problem! Starting motor burned out, *> or frozen engine. Then I thought: what else could it *> be? Maybe the battery is shorting out the circuitry, *> is that possible? That means when we tried the jump *> start, the battery drew all the current, leaving *> nothing for the starter. *> *> So I unhooked the battery, and asked another neighbor *> for a jump, directly to the cables. But he refused! *> He said, without the battery, his alternator could *> blow out. I.e. my battery 'protects' his charger. *> *> Could he be right? It doesn't make sense to me. *> *> Any suggestions appreciated - *> *> Sam *> * *Hi Sam, *Anytime you jump start another vehicle with yours you risk damage to your *alternator. *You don't know what kind of problems caused the dead battery condition. *Most of the time the dead car starts and you are on your way, but it is *possible to damage your regulator, or diodes if the conditions are right. *As for hooking them to the cables, the only additional risk is shorting to *chassis and risking damage to the system. *You would accomplish nothing by this anyway, your car wouldn't run long *after he removed his battery. *See if your dead battery will take a charge, if not, get a new one and drive *the car to have the charging system checked. *Check also for current draw when the car is off. *As an aside, it is quite common for a battery to operate the electronics but *not start the car. The electronics take relatively low current that the *battery usually can still supply. The connections should be checked first, *this is the most common cause. *Regards, *Tom *

"Sam the Bam" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

anything.

Back in the olden days a hammer was a very usefultool to have around to hit the stucked open starter solenoid , aside from that everything else looked normal . Old timer , roma

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My 1989 VW Golf recently started on its third Diehard. It works for me. Sears is no problem if you stand there watching the wetback work, making the occasional helpful comment when he puts a peeled banana into the crankcase.

"Hola, pendejo..."

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Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
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Some 10-year-old cases, settled and fixed, still bother you? You must really lose sleep over the fall of the Roman Empire.

Not "fall", "collapse" (gene-pool failure, or boredom, I forget which :-)

Atty (Mebee dey gived wemen right to vote?)

Don't forget, the battery acts like a shock absorber for the car's electronics. Running a newer car on alternator power only has the potential to ruin vehicle electrical systems because of the spikey voltage the alternator produces. The battery absorbs and smoothes the spikes.

I can't imagine hurting your neighbor's car by jumping your vehicle with your battery disconnected. But it is his car, and you play by his rules.

Having a partially dead battery go flatline in a short time makes me think you have a short somewhere.

After checking to make sure you didn't leave your headlights or dome light on, you might have to look a little farther.

Granted it, could be a bad battery, but I've never seen one go partially dead, then completely dead. Usually they won't hold a good charge, or they are completely dead (open internally)

I had a diode go bad in an alternator once. I found it accidentally. While I was attempting to check the alternator's output (engine cold) I noticed the alternator was warm to the touch. The diode was getting hot, and draining the battery.

Don't jump to conclusions too quickly about a bad battery.

That's what I figured. I don't see how my battery being disconnected is a hazard.

Why not? As I understand it, the alternator runs everything after start up. Is there an interlock, which shuts down the system if it detects an open circuit condition?

Any service garage can check for this?

How to do this? There are no gauges on the dashboard.

Sam

I see, that's the 'buffer' explanation.

So as long as his battery is OK, it shouldn't matter if mine is disconnected.

I'll try this, but I have to get the car started first...

It's hard to troubleshoot, if it isn't the battery. I'm leery about going to a mechanic, and saying, "I don't know what's wrong, check it out" - that's how you get shaved.

Sam

Don't ever disconnect that battery once the engine is running, because the alternator, which was happily charging the battery when it was connected, will suddenly see the charging current drop, and shoot the charging voltage up to 60V. This is called a 'load dump' and makes for lots of fried 12V electronics.

That may be true, but it's crappy design, and borderline incredible. It's easy to design a shunt which detects an open circuit condition.

Sam

The alternator does not run everything, the battery runs everything. The alternator keeps the battery charged.

Any service station that does electrical work.

The station can check for this.

Howver, if your car does start, and you then disconnect the jumper cables, your alternator voltage will rise uncontrollably, since the battery (now disconnected) will normally prevent the system voltage from rising above 14V or so.

With no battery, the voltage will rise enough to destroy the diodes in your alternator, and also most of the electronics in your car.

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get a new one and drive

You can check the car for current draw easily if you have a multimeter. Set the multimeter to measure current; put it on the highest setting. Disconnect one of the battery cables and use the multimeter's leads to complete the circuit you have just broken. The meter will tell you exactly how much current is drawing. You can check for a bad diode in the alternator. With the car off, disconnect the heavy wire from the alternator and do the same multimeter test.