legacycentral bbs

Well, I know I always come here begging for you all to bail me out...
...But, so far it's been working well for me, so here I go again.

My wagon is at my friend's house around the block. My wife and I walked home last night.
Went to start it and there was barely any juice Dash and interiors were super dim.... I cocked the key back and forth..... while in the run position, everything had full power for a second (Bright lights... heater blower blowing, etc) ... Then I tried to start it ... No power again. Well, There was super dim Door ajar light Heat indicator and interior lights... Then Literally NOTHING.
NO juice at all. Won't Pop start or anything.

Um... Normally I would do some troubleshooting before coming to ask some questions, but I have unfortunately been quite violently sick today , and am not about to go f#%k around with it right now...

SO I hope to get some advice before I go poke at it... I was thinking Maybe fusable link, or ignition short... maybe somehow the clutch safety switch???

I'm not really sure the best way to check these issues out.
Is the fusable link the wire looking thingy in the fusebox under the hood? like a wire with a cloth jacket? If so, how do i know if it's bad?
Howzabout checking for an ignition short?

Any help would be very greatly appreciated.
Sorry if this post is a bit jumbled...()

I don't pretend to understand a cars electrical system, but what condition ithe battery in?

Somewhere between fair and poor.
It does the job to start the car, but the power windows are noticeably slower when the car is not actually running.

I just didnt think it would be the battery because of the brief moment that it had totally full power moments before it completely died.

Alternator? I had my alternator go, and shortly thereafter, needed to replace the battery. Have you tried jumping it? When my alternator was shot, I was able to jump it and limp a few miles, then it would die again because it wasn't recharging.

-Brian

I'd actually assume it was the battery, since you say it had power but then was drained. esp if you say its in poor condition. But like I said before i dont fully understand car electrical systems.

I agree with THAWA that you should check the battery. The battery may have been weak, and the starting attempt may have nearly finished it off.

Brian's also right that a dead or dying alternator can take the battery out with it.

Check the battery voltage if you can manage to get out there... sucks being sick.

UGh... Sickness DOES suck... Hell.. Mortality seems to suck in general.

As for my other problem at hand, I'll definitely check the battery too, it just seemes odd cuz I'm talking a very short time frame here:

Attempted start 1, Very Low power > 1 key jiggle later, FULL power > 1 attempted start later, back to Very Low power > one more attempted start, No power.

Then nothing, then nothing, then nothing... no matter what I did.

hmm, I see. Almost sounds like it could have something to do with the ignition switch if you say you jiggled the keys and you got power, but then again wouldnt you always have power (lights, chime, etc) no matter what position the key is in?

If you can't push start it I'm also leaning towards alternator/battery death. Make sure all connections to the battery and alternator are good also.

Steve

Well I got it mostly figured out. The car works again.

2 previous owners ago, the fella installed an amplifier. instead of running the power wire direct from the battery, it was run from where the +12v cable connects to the starter. (Maybe they didn't have enough wire to reach the battery.)
AAAnyway, there was some excess wire stripped off where they had it bolted to the contact and I believe it was touching or maybe arcing over to the starter housing.
I removed the wire in question, and dropped in a new battery (which was overdue reguardless). All is well

What I don't understand is why all power was lost when I'd try to start it, but no fuses were blown, and the only thing to make the power come back was to wait several hours.. (like 12 or more)
Between my last post, and this one, I returned to the car once, and it had power again (obviously weak power though). So I hooked up some jumpers from a friend's car, and I had nice strong power until I tried to start it. Then bam! No power again. even with the jumpers hooked up... Nothing worked again until today.

I just wonder why no blown fuse or fuseable link, and why waiting hours and hours would somehow fix it.
Anyway, I'm just happy to have it fixed.
Thanks again for all your help and suggestions.