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Car Forum / Pontiac / Pontiac Firebird / May 2007

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Drying it out/Electrically dead

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Overlord - 03 May 2007 17:40 GMT
How goes it all?
'99 T/A

Well it rained like hell.  I had enough clearance to get across the water until someone slammed it and threw this
"breaker" under the hood.  That was enough to stall it out.  Tried a couple times to see if it was going to crank but no
such luck.  Then ALL power died.  I ended up pushing it with the help of 3 passing guys who wanted to get wet too.

Towed it, disconnected the battery cable and let it spend the night drying out in the garage.  About 1am I put the cable
to the terminal and the half up/half down radio antenna went down.  I took it as a good sign.
Today however, I've got squat.  Meter on the battery shows 12.x volts disconnected.  Connecting the cable drops it to
like .45 volts across the terminals.  Either the battery is nuked and can't call up any amperage or, more likely,
there's still a short somewhere in here.

I'm fixing to get out the wiring diagrams and start tracing but figured someone out there had seen and done this before.

I know ya'll have a better idea of where to start than I do fumbling around under the hood.

So where would you get into first?

thanks,
Kurt

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Steve Allen - 03 May 2007 19:27 GMT
> Today however, I've got squat.  Meter on the battery shows 12.x volts disconnected.  Connecting the cable drops it to
> like .45 volts across the terminals.  Either the battery is nuked and can't call up any amperage or, more likely,
> there's still a short somewhere in here.

I would suggest that it's a dead battery.  If the battery had juice, and
there was a bad enough short to drag it down to a half-volt, you'd be seeing
showers of sparks when you connected the cable, and wires would get very hot.

~Steve
JimV - 03 May 2007 23:02 GMT
>> Today however, I've got squat.  Meter on the battery shows 12.x volts disconnected.  Connecting the cable drops it to
>> like .45 volts across the terminals.  Either the battery is nuked and can't call up any amperage or, more likely,
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> ~Steve

You might try charging or jumping it. Where's the air intake on that? If
it's down low you might be sad soon (hydro-lock).
Overlord - 04 May 2007 00:50 GMT
>>> Today however, I've got squat.  Meter on the battery shows 12.x volts disconnected.  Connecting the cable drops it to
>>> like .45 volts across the terminals.  Either the battery is nuked and can't call up any amperage or, more likely,
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>You might try charging or jumping it. Where's the air intake on that? If
>it's down low you might be sad soon (hydro-lock).

Hmmm, that doesn't sound good.  Researched it a bit to see.
It's cold air induction down near the ground.  The air filter was wet with a little water laying in the bulb of
the air bellows.  Having had it hauled up on a flatbed and towed, no doubt there's more in the engine to some
degree at least.  Having the possibility of electrical power now, I think I'll leave it sit charging and pull the plugs
in the morning and see what I can see before cranking it.
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Overlord - 04 May 2007 00:22 GMT
I put the cables on the terminals and was getting 12 volts at the other end but even whacking the clamps together wasn't
giving me any sparks.  Had it + car cable disconnected for a while, screwed in a bolt to the + terminal on the battery
and tried again.  Got sparks - after I damn near cooked the wires on my little meter checking amperage.  The extension
cord I was using on the battery charger was defective too.
Just turned on the key and tapped the cable to the bolt/charger clamp and got the key ding.
I'll continue charging the battery and check for cranking this evening.
It could have been a defective battery, or it could have been a dead battery that, once the various minor normal current
sucking stuff in the car were disconnected, allowed it to build up a residual charge like lead acid batteries tend to
do.  Don't know if it would be enough for what I saw tho.  

Kurt

>> Today however, I've got squat.  Meter on the battery shows 12.x volts disconnected.  Connecting the cable drops it to
>> like .45 volts across the terminals.  Either the battery is nuked and can't call up any amperage or, more likely,
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
>~Steve

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