Dead car, but not dead battery???

So as you know I have a 52' Chev deluxe. Runs perfect, pretty much my daily driver.
So today I was driving around just up the street from my house and parked. When I got back to the car it was totally dead. There was a full charge on the battery. (turned the lights on, and all the dash gauges come on when I would turn the key) So I looked around, didn't see any loose wires or nothing and tried it again, still nothing. Luckily I was facing a curb, so I pushed it into the curb and had it bounce back a couple times and then it fired right up...

What the heck do you think it up with that?

 

your description baffles me .. you say that the car is totally dead , but the lights and gauges worked. then it started after you pushed it

are you really saying is that nothing happened when you tried to turn the motor over to start? if that's the case, maybe the starter button or solenoid are bad

 

Yea, turned it on, pushed the push button start and nothing...just dead. didn't even hear it click.. someone said it could be a ground issue..

 

Or a bad battery cable or connection. They will a lot of times pass enough amps to run lights/ign. but not trun the starter.

 

Check your ground strap for the engine. Different curcuits for lights, etc than the engine ground (you know, for ignition and all that stuff?). Sounds like a Gremlin, if that isn't the problem. Those are hard to get rid of.....been chasing them for years on a few cars.

 

Actually,just had this problem with a newer car.The volts on the battery are too low to actually start the car,but they will power everything else.Had to get a jump and the car was fine after that.Couldn't even push start it.

 

New cars have automated battery cutoffs that old cars don't. Old cars don't have computers/sensors/pumps that get harmed when fed 1/2 voltage.

What probably happened is classic corrosion type failure. Something somewhere is barely connecting. It might be an actual wire breaking, or a corroded connector, or a loose connector, or bad contacts within a switch.

Most common place is right at the starter itself. Those wires are often burned, oil soaked, and have been abused by somebody hanging a starter by em during replacement.

It might also be the starter itself. They can stick when they're old and full of oily dirt & ground up mice.

Depending where in the electric system the problem is, sometimes leaving lights on will barely re-establish contact. Kinda like the current burns a pinhole thru the corrosion. You get a one time freebie and the car gets home safe. Other times the act of moving stuff, either wiggling the wiring, or in this case bumping the curb, can move the problem connection a tiny amount and re-establish contact.

Until you've fixed more of these and know what to recognize, there may be no "Ah-ha!" moment during the repair. Start looking and you're likely to find several sketchy connections, they're all equally important, fix em all and don't be suprised if you never really know which one is to blame. Pretty common for first wiring jobs, just adhere to the concept of "fix sketchy looking shit" and you can't go wrong.

Good luck

 

Plenty of batteries will get to far discharged to turn the engine over, but will operate the lights. They way you tell if the battery is dead (this is on older cars only - the ones without computers) is to turn on the lights and then have somebody stand out front and see if the headlights go out when you turn the key to START. On a good battery - the headlights will dim...on a low battery - they'll go out. This will also be true if you have a bad connection - so your problem is to determine whether something is draining the battery, or whether you just have a poor connection somewhere.

dj

 

This just happened to me at Billetproof FL. After driving up from Vero Beach, I pulled into the hotel to check in and when I came out I had power to everything but the starter. Had a buddy check the lights when I tried to start it and they never dimmed. We figured it had to be a wire on the starter, so I turned the key on and he arced the starter with a screwdriver and it fired right up! I pulled the switch out of the dash (55 Chevy Bel Air) and tried the key-it started right up! We figure it must have been a bad connection, or some corrosion on one of the leads on the switch. Tightened them all up, and no problems since.

 

A '52 has a starter button, they do go bad. Check it and the wiring to it.

 

I'd check the connections at the starter... or could it be points going bad?

 

Is your key a dedicated ignition kill? meaning will your lights come on without the key on... if it is dedicated wiggle it and make sure its making good "on" contact. clean all your terminals from battery to solenoid to switch to coil to distributor...use some corrosion-x if its available where you are. start there with the quick and easy approach. Key tumbler contacts wear out over time and are usually the most often overlooked problem...I speak from expensive experience...good luck!

 

Bouncing it off the curb would lead me to look for a loose connection of some kind. It could be in the cables or it could be in the solenoid and/or starter itself.

You did not say if it was still stock 6V or a 12V conversion or a V8 trans plant. If it's still 6V do yourself a favor and remove and wire brush every battery cable connection in the system. Both the pos and neg cables. It's time well spent even if it does not fix your immediate problem.

It could be that you just need a new starter motor, starter button or solenoid. We have a habit of avoiding the obvious trying to find an exotic problem.

I've gotten home more than once by rapping on the starter motor with a hammer but that is on a 93 Ford. It only happens once before it is replaced but it has happened more than once over the years.

 

alot of the old ignition switches have the wires attatched to the back with a single nut. Check the switch and make sure the connection is tight on the back of the switch.

 

had the same thing. mine was the solenoid. never has done it again so far. (knock on wood!)

 

bad connection, or bad solenoid? I'd bench test the starter solenoid. if it works, you've got yourselfa wiring problem. Or a bad ignition switch

 

get yourself a digital multimeter. turning on the headlights is not a very accurate method of testing a battery.

 

Thanks guys for all the awesome info!!! I'm going to be checking for all of this today. I'll let you know what happens. thanks again!

 

Have you tried to Hot wire the car yet ? That will by pass everything but the cables , solenoid & starter . If the starter is bad you should here something like a bump when the starter drive is engaged unless that's bad . Also does the HOT CABLE get hot when trying to start ? That will mean starter stuck . If you have a friend you TRUST have them push the starter button while you tap the starter with a hammer . If stuck it might loosen the crud up inside so it will start .
The first thing I would do is test the battery to make sure it's fully charged .
If you have installed a neutral safety switch that might be your problem . The hot wire method will by pass that .
Check the battery cables to make sure they are all tight and clean .
Then try the hot wire method to start .
Then remove the starter and bench test the starter to see if it's good If that is good then it is your solenoid .

Hope this helps . Good Luck !

 

This just happened to me when i was in cali on leave last year, same symptoms where everything but the starter turns on. if you are still using the original batt cable i would check with that as it is an inexpensive way to try an isolate the prob, all i had to do to mine was cut the end off and redo it, and it worked just fine, apparently the end of cable just became brittle and wasnt allowing the current to flow

 

OK, So now I've installed all new battery cables and she started right up no problem, however it seems to be draining the battery big time when I turn on lights and the heater...its the original harness but has been converted to 12v and has a positive ground. I'm just stumped now. Before I changed the wires when I would turn on lights and the heater the battery indicator would go all the way to "D" now it goes all the way to "C"..
any ideas!!???

 

If it's now going to "c" instead of "d" then you've already solved your problem.
52 chevy should be negative ground

 

First off Chevy's are NEGITIVE ground !! With engine off the amp meter should go to D. If now with the engine off and lights etc. on it goes to C you put the cables on backwards.

 

D= discharge
C= charge

C is good. What D meant was the cables were so bad the alternator couldn't flow enough juice to keep up, so when the system had a heavy amp load, it went into discharge. Now when you put a heavy load on the system (lights & heater), the alternator is able to do it's job and compensate for the load. You're seeing the alternator working in real time.

There's a whole nother level to this discussion in terms of voltage drop and soaring amperage demand. But in terms of simple explanation, that's what happened. You'll probably notice every electric item in the car works better, and it probably idles smoother too.

 

Alright so now thats its back to Negative ground its all working just fine. However when I turn on headlights, and the fan it goes all the way to "D" I'm sure thats because it was Positive ground for over a year and it burned out the alternator..
Anyway now its time to find an alternator!

 

Clear something up here ,is the above with the engine running ? or not?

 

sounds like ya fried it, or have a alternator that energizes at a certain R.P.M. mine dont activate till around 2000 (engine) rpm, and stays energized until you shut the engine down.

 

Yes with the engine running its right in the center of "D" and "C" when I flip on the heater it goes al the way to "d" if I just have the lights on it goes almost to "D"...so I think i'll put in a new alternator.

 

Yep DEAD alt. !!! Most all alt. are neg ground only, there are a few made for industrail apps that are pos. or can be wired either way.

 

happened to me the other day... bad starter...