No Juice

[hkestes41]

Headed out to customer meetings this morning and had to jump my coupe to get it started which I thought was strange, but it fired right up when jumped. Let it run for a couple minutes while I put my wife's car back in the garage then checked the gauge and it was charging. Made it just over 4 blocks from home to a stop sign. Went through the intersection and made it into second gear when it died just as if I had turned off the key. No horn, lights turn signals, nothing.

Towed it back home and went to my meetings late. Have not had a chance to look to see if I can find the problem yet, but wanted to check with the experts to see if I could get some advice for where to start or what to look for. Any ideas?

[greg g]

Have he battery tested, then check the cables to make sure they are not corroded under the insulation. Had the same thing happen to me years ago with a Honda, battery showed fine car would start, the die, jiggle the wires and it would start up go eve a bump and it would die. I found that dispite looking fine to cursory inspection the positive cable was down to about 2 contected strands of the cable still attaching to the battery clamp. It was corroded through all the rest about 1/2 inch up into the insulation.

Car should run a long time on the genny as long as you are not powering other accessories. So I wold suspect the connections from the battery to the main circuits.

[hkestes41]

I will check those, but it has a new battery, cables, alternator and wiring harness in the past 8-9 months.

[greg g]

there is also a 30 amp circuit breaker in the main circuit, it it supposed to reset after it cools after it trips. Never had a problem with one but its something else to look at, Up uder the dash board somw where.

[Normspeed]

You might check the two connections at the ammeter. Seems just about everything flows through there. I had a loose connection there once after I worked on something under the dashboard, and it went dead like that.

[james curl]

I am not sure but I think you have to have power to the alternator to make the elctromagnet work so that the thing can put out voltage. If the battery has an open in it it would just die. The engine will run on a generator with a dead battery once you get it started, does not matter if it is open. Thats the way I remember my auto electric system from school. Once had a 64 olds cutlas and replaced the starter one sunday night so I could be ready to leave for a work trip at 5:00 AM. Got about 5 miles and every thing went out, turned out when I put the battery cable on the starter I got it aginst the exhaust manifold and the heat burned the insulation off and the manifold drained every thing out of the battery.

Edited May 29, 2009 by james curl
addition

[Young Ed]

Ya my car did some funky stuff when the ammeter wires were loose too. And do yourself a favor check them sooner rather then later before you end up with a singed ammeter stud like I did