1601d Won't start Battery goes flat.

[Ianserv]

My 1601D was working fine then one day as it tried to start I saw some sparks (the hood was off) and it just went dead, no light or anything. The battery appeared dead.

I charged the battery again and the dash lights and guages all cam on, but as soon as I tried to start it there was maybe brief click and everything went dead. Battery flat again.

I repeated that to be sure.

I replaced the starter solenoid because I had had something like this before but it didn't seem to help, same problem.

Basically as soon as the switch goes on the battery goes flat so I assume some sort of short.

Any thoughts?

 

[bruce1966us]

You have a bad connection. probably where you saw the sparks.

 

[Pete Judd]

Yep, I think Bruce has it.

 

[clemsonfor]

Check to make sure the insulation is not rubbed of any of the Hot wires and shorting to ground, via what it may be touching.

 

[Ianserv]

Ok that all sounds fair enough and presumably the wiring of the starter is the issue.

Any other thoughts on zeroing in on it?

I've traced that back and forth and I can see nothing wrong.

I seem to remember there is a way to bypass some/all of the circuit to make sure its not inside the starter.

 

[Car Doc]

Sounds like a bad battery terminal connection or a cable end corroded, clean and retest. good luck

 

[clemsonfor]

Had the bad terminal/connector problem this weekend in my truck. Battery is old and getting weak so my first thought was it was bad. Charged it over night. Still would not start. Tested battery and had over 13v after resting a bit as i cleaned it it settled back to around 12.7v. I just figured it had no amps as it could not start the truck. I jumped it off of a good car and it ran fine testing to see if the alt was charging i noticed that the terminal had about 14.5v on it and the middle of the post had about 13.9. Then i realized the corrosion was so bad that there was no connection even after replacing the bolt and wire brushing terminal. I pulled the connector off and the probe barely scraped the post as the corosion was so hard and built up, it made the terminal super hard. Borrowed my neighbors real terminal/post cleaner and retightened and it fired right up where before it would either click or right before cleaned it not enough power to turn the cab light on!!

Still running that battery 3 days later. It may only last another month week, whatever its 7 yrs old and owes me nothing. I have many vehicles and am rarely in a place i cant get jumped off so i dont worry to much about it.