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Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's good]

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dbshubin

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Hi to everyone,
I'm trying to start my car and it acts as if it has a dead battery. I know it's good, it's had a charger on it for a day or so. It's reading 12.7 volts.

Someone told me my coil is bad, but I don't think that would have anything to do with it turning over or not. It would just prevent it from starting maybe is how I see it. The starter should still turn the engine over.

Can anyone point me in the right dirrection? Is there soppose to be a ground wire coming off the starter? Becouse I can't see one. It may just ground itself. I know there's away to jump it with a screw driver. Not sure how, do you do it at the relay leading to the stater? To test if the starter is good?
 
I had a problem relatively the same to yours from what it sounds like.
You should check all these things to help you figure your problem out. And just so yo know the starter is grounded to the engine/car.

First try to turn the engine by hand. That means going to the front and trying to turn the crank shaft. If it turns then you wont have to rebuild you engine like i am currently doing.

Second when you turn the key to start the car, if you hear a clicking noise or something like a tapping sound it might be your starter trying to turn the engine but not having any success. If that's the case that means either a bad starter or a ceased engine.

Now if you hear nothing i would check your solenoid and your coil. Either one of those could be causing the problem.

For your sake i hope its just something electrical. That's all i know cause that is all iv gone through with mine. Hope iv helped out in some way. :smile:
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

Could a bad coil cause this to happen? Some one that I know looked at it and said that the coil was bad. I have sense bought one. ( I believe ) I bought one from Advanced Distributors over a week ago. I have not heard anything from them. They have yet to even send me an email saying I bought one. Although my credit card has been charged long ago. They said they custom make them to your car.

So what I'm wondering now is if that could be the missing link to the puzzle? Or if there could be more wrong with it that I may address it now while I wail for the coil.

By the way the car does turn over once or twice with the key and then nothing. No clicking no other noises either.
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

Try jumper cables incase the battery has a bad cell.
12 volts is fine but how many amps? The starter needs amps.
Or the starter may be going bad.
If it turns over a little, it's not enough amps or the starter is toasted.
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

If it "turns once or twice" then it really sounds like the battery although it could still be the starter. Get a jump from a known good one to know for sure. In any case, it is not the coil.
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

Tho i have not heard of this in quite a while- sometimes the battery posts can crack internally and give problems.

m
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

If it won't turn over, the problem is not the coil. You may or may not have a bad coil, but that's not the problem at the moment.

The only way to be really sure that the battery is good is to load test it. It can charge all the way to 12V plus and still not be good when it's loaded.

90% of these problems are bad electrical connections. 10% are the battery or starter. But, having said that, the fact that it turns over a couple times and then stops really sounds like a bad battery to me.
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

It was a dead battery. Then I should have said," I thought I was a good battery."
Thanks to everyone for your help.

David Shubin
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

LOL, bet more than one of us have done that.
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

Boy oh Boy, I sure did feel like a ya ya! I guess I just had it on the charger to trickle charge and it took two days to fully charge up. I'm just glad I was buzy for the two days or I would have kept trying and never figured it out.
Thanks again
David Shubin
you guys are the greatest here I must say
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

I've found that one of the most useful tools you can have is a good battery charger. I dropped $50 for a 15-amp, "intelligent" charger that adapts to the battery's state of charge. Especially important if you have a generator; the old generator/control box system really does not do a good job of keeping the battery charged correctly. This directly affects battery life.
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

Intresting you should say that Steve. Miss Agatha has a generator and is running the battery installed during her restoration, never been charged by anything but the generator.
 
Re: Car seems to have a dead battery [I no it's go

The problem with the conventional generator and control box is that it charges the battery at about 13.7-13.8V, which is not high enough to avoid sulfation at the negative (I think....) plate. And, it doesn't even do that very well. The higher, constant charging voltage of the regulators in modern alternators ( about 14.5V) is one reason why battery life is a lot longer these days than 30 or 40 years ago. The battery technology hasn't changed that much, but the charging system sure has.

Back when I had a generator, I was always recharging the battery. Any time I was working on the car, if I had to start it often, it would eventually give up. Putting it on a charger once in a while at 14.5V stopped that problem. It's possible, though, that the control box was not in perfect adjustment (even though it checked out fine by the method in the manual) but in any case it was probably no worse than most of them out there.
 
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