dinnyin

I’ve searched but everything coming up is related to starter or dme problems, so I’m sorry if I missed my answer in there, but would appreciate a leg up here.

Car was was running fine today. Went to start it tonight and it was turning over normally then just stopped. Tried it again, but no power at all. No lights, nothing. Like I blew a main fuse but everything in the fuse panel looks fine.

Any suggestions for when I go to retrieve it tomorrow?

Thanks

wildcat077

Best guess would be to trace the 12 volt power supply from the battery on ... if you're not getting lights , then at least you know it's not an ignition switch issue.
I'm sure somebody will come up with a logical explanation !

dinnyin

Well, I guess it was a sudden total death of the battery. I was able to jump the car immediately this morning, got it home and now it won't start.

theiceman

do you have a green ****. ? these things are notorious for loosing connection to the battery. i would clean up your battery posts and reapply. remember when you jump you jump onto the leads not the battery.

oldskewel

I agree on the other advice.

But I'll say that once I had an intermittent internal failure in my battery (an Optima red top in my '85) that would make the car seem completely dead. Then when applying jumper cables, it would be instantly fixed - instant full power start, driving fine until a few restarts later when it would happen again. Being intermittent meant it was tough to track down, and I checked and cleaned every connection I could find. Then evenutally swapped the battery and after several months (and years now, since then) later confirmed it had been an internal battery fault. So they do happen. Easiest would be if you have another car battery you could swap in there for debugging.

theiceman

Optima i agree is a different animal , i here people that have them love them due to their size and weight advantage, but they are certainly not as reliable as their dinosaur behemoth cousins.

dinnyin

No green **** (that I know if and I don't see anything green so...)

Popped by the shop where I purchased the battery (just) 18 months ago, they tested it, said it was failing and replaced the behemoth free of charge. Back in business.
It does make me wonder why a battery they warranty for 6 years only lasted 1.5 though.

Guess it was the simplest answer after all. I was all ready to start tracking down loose / corroded ground straps etc.

Thanks for the thoughts.

oldskewel

Glad you're going again. On the 1.5 years, it must be a manufacturing defect. It will wear out after 6 years, if no defects, but ...

Anyway, you found it a lot quicker than I found mine.

theiceman

never a bad idea to do that anyway on these old cars....

i had the one on my tarnsmision mount fracture from corrosion, had me scratching my head for a few minutes thats for sure.

mstier

I had a similar or identical problem for a long time, and with two batteries. Intermittent failure to start, couldn't trace it to anything. Usually I could get the car to start by pulling out and reinserting the inline fuse that sits a couple inches downline from the battery anode, although often it would take several repetitions of this operation. Finally I took the VOM to the battery and saw it was at 11.5 volts with leads disconnected. Took it back where I bought it and they determined it was defective and replaced it. Haven't had a start failure in the year since.