ketel

Gang,

I gotta dead '89 C4. Trying to troubleshoot but coming up empty.

Here's the backstory: Saturday I noticed my D/S front running light was not operating. I pulled out the light assembly to check illumination on the bulb. The Bulb was fine. I figured it was a bad fuse, so I checked that also. I pulled a few fuses and they were fine. I decided not to proceed further because I could not find my spare fuse kit. I left it that I would revisit the issue once I got a chance to run out to the auto supply store and stock up. I reinstalled the fuses and closed up.

Today, I tried to get to work and there was nothing. No interior lights. Totally dead. I hooked up my trickle charger and there was no light emitted on the diode, which is not normal. I pulled off the fuse panel to make sure there were no misfitted fuses or any loose relays. All seemed normal. I pulled the #41 and #40 fuses as a test and no light came on on the tester. This would indicate that the fuses were bad, but they looked fine and WERE fine 72 hours ago. I checked other fuses. All dead, with the exception of #11.

What gives? Any ideas? Help!!

Thanks, all

ketel

tbennett017

Dumb question: Does your car start and/or run? or is it electrically dead? Are we talking lights or the whole car?

hawk911

sounds like a dead battery to me

ketel

Totally dead. No lights. Nothing cranking. The whole car.

Does this sound like a fuse or relay problem?

ketel

tbennett017

The obvious check is the battery voltage. You could have a short that is eating your battery. Do you have a meter?

ketel

No, I don't have a multimeter but I could get one easily enough.

Assuming I get one, how best to troubleshoot? I read in Adrian's 964 book to hook it up to the battery terminals and pull each fuse to see if the voltage drops?

Even if I pinpoint, how do I resolve the issue?

thanks.

ketel

hawk911

I think we're saying to check voltage on the battery first; then worry about fuses.

tbennett017

Yep, you'll want to eventually check the fuses, but first see if the battery has any charge at all. Get a meter. Then we can get back to the bennett/hawk show on the rest of your repairs...

Porscheholic

I believe you still need battery power for the fuse tester to work, so that fact that the fuse light did not illuminate does not necessarily mean the fuse/relay is bad.

I had a similar problem a few months ago, and it turned out my heater blower relay went bad, which caused the blower to run continually until the battery was dead.

Oracle

Check your batter ground strap. Sounds like a battery issue

Richard Curtis

When you get a multimeter, check voltage across the battery's posts. You need a minimum of 12.5 volts for the car to start, higher is better (around 13 or a little bit more). When the car is running at a high idle (around 2,000 rpm), the battery voltage should be around 14, indicating that the battery is being charged. If the battery voltage is low, try putting the battery on a charger for a few hours (overnight is good) then test it again.