Non-starting problem

[lparsons]

When I open my door, my dome light is on and bright. When I move the key towards the run (not even all the way to start) it quickly gets dim and goes out. Moving the key back to off brings the light back on.
Turning all the way to start will give either a single click or no sound at all. I just charged my battery overnight, so it shouldn't be the battery. I suspect something else is awry here. The last time I had this problem I ended up putting new connectors on the battery cables. The connections are still good and snug - I even retightened them.
I'm completely baffled by this. It seems like something may be draining power somewhere? Out of desperation I think I will pull the starter and take it in but my gut instinct is the starter is a red herring (unless the solenoid is shot).
It did this yesterday afternoon as well, which is why I charged the battery overnight. I had to call AAA for a start, and when they got there they said the battery was reading 12.8V. Knowing that our cars won't start with less than 14V, I figured I just needed a full charge. The AAA guy insisted my starter was the problem because he swore up and down that cars can start on 13.1V.

 

[lparsons]

I just checked the voltage on the battery - less than an hour after taking it off the charger - and it came up 12.79V. I know this is not enough to start the car. I wonder if a trip back to sears to return this "die hard gold" battery is in my future, as it is less than 1 year old.

I should also mention that the reason why I doubt the AAA guy's advice that it is the starter is that once we had the voltage we needed, the car started up no problem. No starter noise of any sort.

 

[HISSIN50]

A fully charged wet cell battery holds 12.66 volts. You actually only need more than about 10 volts while cranking for it to start.

If you put a jumper battery on, does it crank?
Do you headlights come on and stay bright when it acts up?

The dome light goes out when the key is turned to the run position as I recall, so that sounds about right.

I would grab a jumper cable and use it to parallel your existing cables, one at a time. WHen your car cranks, whatever cable you are paralleling is likely deficient.

Random thoughts.
Good luck.

 

[lparsons]

A fully charged wet cell battery holds 12.66 volts. You actually only need more than about 10 volts while cranking for it to start.

If you put a jumper battery on, does it crank?

The AAA guy was able to jump it with their portable jumper device. Otherwise, the best we could get was 1 click, and then nothing. We couldn't even repeat the one click with a subsequent attempt.

Do you headlights come on and stay bright when it acts up?

The dome light goes out when the key is turned to the run position as I recall, so that sounds about right.

The lights are an interesting anomaly of their own right now. One thing I've noticed is that if I have enough power for the dome light to come on, the dash will also light up. Then, I try to start it, and everything goes out. If I put the key back into the run position, everything is *still* out at that point. No clock, dome light, or dash lights of any sort, even with the door open.

I would grab a jumper cable and use it to parallel your existing cables, one at a time. When your car cranks, whatever cable you are paralleling is likely deficient.

I've been suspecting the negative battery cable for some time. If only I could figure out where the **** it goes from the battery. IIRC, Ford charges like $200 for a replacement negative cable (as opposed to the positive which I already replaced at autozone for like $15).

I guess I had previously come to think that 12.8V was low for a battery. I can't seem to find where that came from, so perhaps this problem has just been driving me nuts for so long that I can't keep numbers straight anymore. I guess when the AAA guy said most cars start at around 13.1 I figured maybe the 14V I thought I had heard was the actual requirement for our cars.

 

[lparsons]

This doesn't make much sense, but...

I managed to get my car to start. Finally, I just re-tightened the connectors to the battery, and for some reason now its happy. How the connectors could have just simply loosened on their own is beyond me, and they really were still quite snug when I disconnected them this morning to bring the battery in for testing.

Though even more mystifying is that when the battery was not connected to anything, I got a voltage reading of 12.8V. Then after I reconnected it and started the car, letting it only run for about 2 minutes or so, I turned off the car and got a voltage of 13.5V.

Sometimes I think that the boys over a Jaguar sent some of their Lucas engineers over to work on my car while Ford was considering buying out their company...

 

[HISSIN50]

I managed to get my car to start. Finally, I just re-tightened the connectors to the battery, and for some reason now its happy. How the connectors could have just simply loosened on their own is beyond me, and they really were still quite snug when I disconnected them this morning to bring the battery in for testing.

Though even more mystifying is that when the battery was not connected to anything, I got a voltage reading of 12.8V. Then after I reconnected it and started the car, letting it only run for about 2 minutes or so, I turned off the car and got a voltage of 13.5V.

Sometimes I think that the boys over a Jaguar sent some of their Lucas engineers over to work on my car while Ford was considering buying out their company...

So it seems to be fixed for now?

You might have had a thin layer of corrosion between the terminal and cable connector. Just snugging it up created a tiny bit of movement to break through (having grown up in the snow and rain, I've seen some oddball stuff). One more thing to check just for maintenance: Remove the nut on the Power distribution center (where the battery cable and alt cables connnect) and clean that up. That connection can be problematic.

The car-off reading of 13.5 volts is a little strange. Optimas can have a static charge of over 13 volts but I've not seen a lead acid battery do this. If I see 12.5 volts, I'm always real happy.

at the Prince of Darkness comments. I cut my teeth on old Euro stuff and am well versed in creative circuitry. I always found it amusing that hope was lost so things like dual fuel pumps (for when the first one failed) were used.

The irony is that Lucas is pretty good now and it's our stuff that makes me wonder.