five-o

Okay, the car has been sitting a few weeks since I've been doing a little work on the door. I go to start it and no start. I jump it and it fires right up. I drive it for about half an hour and go home. I shut it off and and later checked it and it fired up. Now, It sat another three days and it was dead again. Now it won't even fire with a charged battery. It just cranks and cranks but not even a sputter. So I check the battery and it's draining about 1/2 volt every hour. I recharge it and disconnect the negative terminal and I get the same 12v dc from the negative post to the negative cable that I do accross the battery terminals. I have to go to work soon so I really don't have time to crawl underneath it today. I'm just looking for somewhere to start. I was thinking I have a grounded wire somewhere but I'm not a mechanic-although I will be after owning this car Thanks

david fracolli

Instead of pulling the ground off pull the fuses 1 by 1 until you determine what the cause of the battery drain is.

Ski

you could have a cell in your battery that is going bad causing the battery to go bad - how old is it? If the battery is going bad, you can keep charging it but sooner or later that won't work anymore.

VWaddict

That's normal. The entire car has 0 Volts across it, so all points anywhere on the car's electrical system will always be 12V away from the disconnected end, since they are 0 Volts away from the connected end.

Keith

chris951

check the hot wires from the alternator to the starter and back to the battery, then check the body ground and engine ground(top of bellhousing).

badass951

This is the most efficient way to do it.

five-o

Okay thanks. Like I said, I'm not a mechanic so this will be a learning process for me. Thanks for the input. I'll post the problem when I figure it out.

Rip It

Does the door u were working on have any electrical equipement inside. Did you have this problem before u worked on the door. Maybe a wire is touching something ?

reno808

the volt meter is your best friend on this one... Start checking for the obveious drains