Alright... this is gonna be a long explanation to make sure I get the whole story across. Hopefully somebody has run across something like this before and has some info for me.
I have an '87 Stang with just over 50,000 miles. Really clean inside and out. The engine looks like brand new yet. Under the hood is clean. It has a year old Interstate battery that I have had tested at two different places and it tests out perfect.
About a month ago the problem started where I would go to start my car and it sounded like the battery was really low or that I had a bad connection because it would barely turn over at first and then once it got going it was just fine.
Fast forward to a month later... (I don't drive the car all that often) and I went into the garage to fire it up and I noticed right away that my clock and radio stations were reset. I thought...hrmmm... my battery went dead? But after turning the key a couple times (it clicked a few times first) it cranked right over like it had full charge. So I shut it off, cleaned the battery terminals and the connectors on the wires and tightened em back down good (they weren't dirty in the first place but I did it anyway) and went to go try starting it again and it clicked a couple times and then after hitting the key a couple of times it fired right up. So I thought... maybe bad ground to the block? But that was clean as well... no corosion and it's tight. The positive wire going to the solenoid is also tight and looks like new. Could the wires themselves just be going bad? Or is there anything else I am forgetting here? How about the solenoid? If that was going bad could that cause the radio to lose power when the car is not running? My battery wires and connectors all are very clean and look like new, but perhaps the 17 years are catching up to the wires internally? Can I test them like a plug wire? What kind of resistence should I be looking for? Any ideas would be appreciated... I will probably buy new wires and connectors and try that... but that's about my only idea. Like I said, the battery tested out perfect at two locations and there is no draw on it when the car is not running. I've never had to charge the battery.
I have an '87 Stang with just over 50,000 miles. Really clean inside and out. The engine looks like brand new yet. Under the hood is clean. It has a year old Interstate battery that I have had tested at two different places and it tests out perfect.
About a month ago the problem started where I would go to start my car and it sounded like the battery was really low or that I had a bad connection because it would barely turn over at first and then once it got going it was just fine.
Fast forward to a month later... (I don't drive the car all that often) and I went into the garage to fire it up and I noticed right away that my clock and radio stations were reset. I thought...hrmmm... my battery went dead? But after turning the key a couple times (it clicked a few times first) it cranked right over like it had full charge. So I shut it off, cleaned the battery terminals and the connectors on the wires and tightened em back down good (they weren't dirty in the first place but I did it anyway) and went to go try starting it again and it clicked a couple times and then after hitting the key a couple of times it fired right up. So I thought... maybe bad ground to the block? But that was clean as well... no corosion and it's tight. The positive wire going to the solenoid is also tight and looks like new. Could the wires themselves just be going bad? Or is there anything else I am forgetting here? How about the solenoid? If that was going bad could that cause the radio to lose power when the car is not running? My battery wires and connectors all are very clean and look like new, but perhaps the 17 years are catching up to the wires internally? Can I test them like a plug wire? What kind of resistence should I be looking for? Any ideas would be appreciated... I will probably buy new wires and connectors and try that... but that's about my only idea. Like I said, the battery tested out perfect at two locations and there is no draw on it when the car is not running. I've never had to charge the battery.