so i went to crank my car yesterday and got "click". i tested the battery and it was fine. but i put it on the tender overnight anyway. got home from work today turned the key and "click" again. so of course i had to bang on the starter while the wife held the key on and no luck. out comes the multimeter and i start probing all over. after verifying the starter was good by jumping to the backside of the solenoid and getting it to turn, i decided to jump from the battery terminal to front side of the solenoid. when i turned the key all was good. starter turned and engine fired up. proving the solenoid was good. i removed the jumper cables turned the key again and "click" again. this leads me to believe the positive battery cable to the solenoid has gone bad? i removed it, inspected it and the crimps and terminals and nothing appears bad. i actually am getting 12.53 volts to the solenoid, but when i turn the key just a click. anybody have thoughts of whats going on.
check your grounding cables? I keep reading that 85% of electrical problems are caused by ground issues, so I've only got a 15% chance my suggestion is wrong, lol. Seriously, check your grounds, any that might be in your starting circuit, as well as your main grounding straps. Also, have your battery checked at parts store. If it's got an internal short, just attaching a jumper battery to the posts while they're still attached to the "bad" battery won't let you start it. I just went thru this this week with the other woman's car(I live with two)that gets driven about 20 miles a month. She bought a battery two years ago at O'reilly's, and it went bad last December. The replacement battery they gave her on the warranty went bad a year later. That's two in two years with internal shorting. You can imagine what I told him when he asked if I wanted to buy a new battery. BTW, when I charged the battery after she had starting problems, it took a full (12.5v) charge according to the digital readout.
Usually it’s a ground issue, but your cable could be corroded where the cable goes into either the crimped end or terminal end.
Put it back together. Turn your headlights on high and your heater blower motor on high. Try to start, if it goes “click” everything should go dead indicating a bad battery.
Since you've isolated it down to the cable, the next step would be to put the ohm meter across it. You can get bad corrosion hidden away inside the crimp. You can still get full voltage across a cable even when it can't carry enough current to turn the starter motor.
He didn't say when he went to the front of the solenoid and the car started whether he was using a jumper battery or the same battery that's installed in the car. So, with that in mind we don't really know if he has isolated it to a bad cable. If he was using a jumper battery, then I repeat that the battery should be checked, and not just at the terminals
Maybe I misunderstood, but for now it sounds like he simply placed a jumper in addition to the cable while the original cable was still in place and everything started fine. He took the jumper off and was back to a no-start condition. It is possible to have an internal break in either the battery or solenoid, and clamping on the jumper physically tweaked everything just enough to make contact, but the next simple/cheapest thing to check is the cable.
meaning the original battery was actually removed from the car and the second battery was installed in it's place? Just making sure the second battery wasn't just hooked up with jumper cables still attached to the original battery, as one would do normally jump starting another car.
How old is the cable? When in doubt, throw it out. I had a local speed shop make up my cables in about 20 minutes and $35 out of my pocket. They look and work great and I didn't have to get dirty for once....
cable was about 2 years old. new cable is an hour old and solved the problem.. i did strip the old cable and dont see where an issue could be. thanks all
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