Dead Electrical

Have you got some dirt or oil/grease on the battery posts? That's what it sounds like to me.

On Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 1:19:36 PM UTC-4, Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney wr ote:

pped. Next turn solenoid clicked only. After that no sound on turning key . No radio, panel lights, headlights, etc.

charged. Voltage OK at the solenoid relay on the inside wall.

ow them but do not tell where to look for them. I assume close to the batt ery -- will spend some time now looking and TS with a meter.

They will be (typically) some sort of little black box mounted on the firew all, or somewhere near the main fuse box or battery, it may look like a fan cy connector as well. But it will be there. There will be no such thing on the ground side. Only on the + side.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

I just had a similar thing happen to my old Case backhoe. I turn the key and the solenoid only clicks. Checking the voltage at the starter when I try to start it the voltage dropped to about 2 volts. I suspected that the starter motor had shorted out internally. I was gonna pull it to test it and then my son gets down low so he can see the bottom of the starter. He found that the heavy copper strip that goes from the solenoid to the starter motor had been bent such that it was touching the motor housing. So there was my short and it only occurred when I attempted to start the backhoe. I figure a branch must have somehow poked its way up far enough to hit the starter motor when I was using the machine in the woods the other day. Eric

it

Posts are clean. New battery 2 months ago and cleaned good and check hot and neutral wires.

stopped. Next turn solenoid clicked only. After that no sound on turning key. No radio, panel lights, headlights, etc.

fully charged. Voltage OK at the solenoid relay on the inside wall.

show them but do not tell where to look for them. I assume close to the battery -- will spend some time now looking and TS with a meter.

They will be (typically) some sort of little black box mounted on the firewall, or somewhere near the main fuse box or battery, it may look like a fancy connector as well. But it will be there. There will be no such thing on the ground side. Only on the + side.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Thanks, I looked and didn't see it yet. Hot battery terminal has one large and one small wire, both going directly to the solenoid relay mounted on the side wall. No voltage drop between battery post and relay connection.

3 others hot wired connected there on the same post go various places, but none go to anything that would have fuses, relays in it.

Will keep looking for it. I'm suspecting the problem is in the ground circuit. Will attack that next.

stopped. Next turn solenoid clicked only. After that no sound on turning key. No radio, panel lights, headlights, etc.

fully charged. Voltage OK at the solenoid relay on the inside wall.

diagrams show them but do not tell where to look for them. I assume close to the battery -- will spend some time now looking and TS with a meter.

Thanks Eric. I'll check that here today. I replaced the solenoid & starter last week. Always careful with connections but as the wife says, I don't always notice everything....

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote in message news:S7GdnZ9Ef snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com... Out of the blue, I turned the ignition key and the started jerked and stopped. Next turn solenoid clicked only. After that no sound on turning key. No radio, panel lights, headlights, etc.

My guess at this point is that there is a bad negative ground.

No ongoing symptoms before today. Battery is new and checks out as fully charged. Voltage OK at the solenoid relay on the inside wall.

Searched last night for a main fuse or fusible links. Wiring diagrams show them but do not tell where to look for them. I assume close to the battery -- will spend some time now looking and TS with a meter.

Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance.

===

Update from today....

I turned the key this morning and it started right up. When I got back home, I turned it off and on a few times and started each time without hesitation.

This morning the clock showed 5:30. When power is restored, the clock starts at 12:00. This means that the power was restored to the clock about the time I stopped troubleshooting yesterday. Last thing I did yesterday before locking it up was try to start it and all was dead, including panel, radio, lights, etc. Unless slamming the door jiggled a connection, I don't know what would have caused it. It would not be a heat-related problem because the engine was never started that day.

I don't want to go driving around town not knowing what the problem is but I'm stumped now.

So I guess what I'm looking for is some things to check the next time it won't start.

Had something similar happen to a car. The battery was fine, the car wouldn't start. Turned out the battery cable had corroded below the battery where it didn't show - maybe got some acid drip from the battery? I dunno.

Anyway, the way we found it was checked voltage under load. There was plenty at the battery but not at the end of that wire.

You need you wife or girlfriend or someone to turn the ignition key on and off while you check the voltage at the battery itself, and then going away from the battery to the chassis on the negative side and if ok those two pl aces, go from chassis ground to the hot lead down the line from the batter y toward the load. It must be either that the battery voltage drops under load, or that there is a high resistance somewhere in the circuit. You get to play Dick Tracy to find it.

Let's just hope for his sake it's not an intermittent fault (as it's beginning to sound like) - they can make any fault 10x harder to find.

started that day.

sure sounds like rusted body joints. Lots of cars depend on the body being very connected for the ground. the Door slamming gives it away.

Jamie

Just to expound on the key off and on. If indeed the solenoid pulls in, THEN is when you need to find the fault, current needs to flow to find to find the bad connection. If you have 0.06 ohms of resistance in a battery/starter circuit and the starter tries to draw 200 amps, there is 12 volts dropped across your battery connection.* You won't be able to measure 0.06 ohms. Mikek

• yes, I'm aware if you have 0.06 ohms of resistance at the battery connection the starter can't draw 200 amps, but...

You didn't mention the make and model, that might help.

That the lights and radio were dead is telling. Some cars haqve the battery + going straight to the starter motor and the solenoid is mounted right th ere and also serves to engage the gear to the flywheel. It sound like that is where your bad connection is. Older GM cars were like that. Over the yea rs the vibration can make that nut loosen up. Now that you got it to connec t by jarring it (the door) and welded it together (by actually starting it, the connection might stay good for some time. However it is still unreliab le and unreliable shit in cars is no good.

since you say you don't see any fusebox looking type of thing nearby, the c onnection point may well be right at the starter. I would crawl down there and undo it and redo it. Maybe brush up the connections a bit. I would say to test it by trying to turn them but they might be welded together so that test could easily yield a false negative. (no pun intended this time) If y ou redo those connections, remember to disconnect the negative battery cabl e first. When spark fly from something like that they can hurt your eyes, b urn your clothes, and if there's ant gasoline laying around you might find out just how good your insurance is.

So when is grease on the terminals bad ??

Before it is connected. After it is connected grease helps keep the elements away but you don't want it between the mating surfaces.

Some mechanics can not be educated. If the grease is any good,not all of it will be squeezed out so there is direct metal contact.

Think of it, the purpose of grease is to prevent metal to metal contact.

Clean the posts and clamps where they mate and put the clamps on. Then put the grease or whatever you want on after that.

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote in message news:S7GdnZ9Ef snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com...

Sounds like corrosion wherever the big earth cable from the battery gets bolted to the chassis.

All the fuses are low current circuits (compared to the starter motor). A common location for the fuse panel was on the bulkhead behind the engine - nowadays more likely to be somewhere in or around the glove compartment. Sometimes behind a removable panel beside the driver's footwell.

At 200A, even one miliohm of connection resistance is going to waste 40W of battery power.

in

there

Before and after cleaning all the connections in the starting circuit the voltage drop during starting is about the same - less than 3V.