Help! - Crazy Electrical Issue

[robhauser]

I go to start the 90 vette today, and I have absolutely no electrical power. I originally thought the I had left something on and drained the battery (6 months old), so I hooked the charger up. The charger immediately shows a full charge.

I went to see if I had any power to teh car with the charger hooked up and flipped the lights on. As soon as I did that, the car comes to life, making all kinds of clicks, dash lights flashing and the alarm goes off. If I remove the charger, everything goes dead again. I cannot get the car to crank at all. I repeated this process a couple of times but stopped because of the alarm.

Any ideas what could be going on here? I am at a complete loss.

Thanks in advance,

Rob
90 Coupe

 

[ßill]

If you connected the charger directly to the bolts on the battery, My guess is a mechanical break inside the battery. Have the battery checked out where you bought it.

 

[robhauser]

Actually, I tried the charger directy on the bolts and with the negative lead on the chassis. I got the same result both ways. I will certainly take the battery back to Sears for a check. It is a DieHard Gold, so dealing with them should not be too hard.

 

[LLC5]

Actually, I tried the charger directy on the bolts and with the negative lead on the chassis. I got the same result both ways. I will certainly take the battery back to Sears for a check. It is a DieHard Gold, so dealing with them should not be too hard.

Make sure your battery cables are clean and tight on the battery and engine. After checking bolt tightness, wiggle the cables to make sure that they are tight to the fasteners as there are times when the fastener is tight, but the connection is still loose. Having your battery properly load tested would be a good idea also, as even new battery's can be weak or bad. Good luck with it.

 

[shortej]

I had something simular happen to my 94 vette. I checked the voltage at the fuse box by the battery, it it was only getting 5 volts. Cleaned the connections to both fuse boxes by the battery and had no further problems. Hope this helps. ES

 

[Schrade]

I had something simular happen to my 94 vette. I checked the voltage at the fuse box by the battery, it it was only getting 5 volts. Cleaned the connections to both fuse boxes by the battery and had no further problems. Hope this helps. ES

Depending on exactly what you were touching, 5 volts is normal PWM reference voltage. Dead 12 volts systems will still show 12V, except on modulated circuits, that will show variable voltage - 0-5 V