i recently had a big problem where everytime i turned the key to acc it would blow the fuel pump/ecm fuse up by the battery. have another thread in here about that. now i'm down to 2 weeks until have to move and i MUST have my car able to start and run briefly by then (pulling up onto a trailer provided by the moving company, they won't move it unless it runs)

well now that fuse no longer pops. i can turn it to acc and the fuel pump primes ok. the first time i tried to start it however, it killed all power to the car, like the battery was unhooked. all of the fuses under the dash look good. what can kill all power from the battery? other fuses im not aware of? like i said, it was perfectly fine until i tried to start it. i tried leaving the battery unhooked for a while and hooking it back up, nothing. seems like a fuse.

 

is the battery charged? do other things work on the car like your lights? radio? heater?.

 

yeah the batteries fine. nothing works. its like theres no battery hooked up. everything was fine until i tried to start it, then immedietely all lights, everything went out.

 

first thing i would look for is ground problems.
for ground, there should be a big cable going from the battery to the motor, preferably mounted to the block. a wire going from the battery to the body, i think its about a 10 gage or so wire.
2 motor to body grounds, normally one on the back of each head going to the firewall.
each connection needs to be mounted to clean, unpainted metal.
another thing that comes to mind is you could have bad cables, you can loose electrical contact between the cable & the clamp or connector.
the last thing i can think of is a connection problem at the starter.

 

if it was a bad ground though, wouldnt the problem have manifested before i tried to start it? it didnt turn over or anything, where it might have jarred something loose, it was like the electrical signal to the starter blew a fuse somewhere. if it was an electrical problem at the starter, wouldnt it be only the starter? the batteries reading 12.1v, should be plenty to at least kick on the interior light.

 

Check your fusible links by your starter- they're thin pieces of wire- one is probably melted. Get a volt meter and work your way along the battery cable- just work logically and you can't go wrong.

 

FWIW Make sure you check the terminals at the battery I have had this happen to me before (usually when it is raining or extremely cold) make sure they are tight and clean. sometimes a jiggle in the tightening direction brings back your power

 

 

but again, wouldnt that only kill the power to the starter and not the entire car?

 

not neccesarilly not all of the fusible links r 4 the starter only.I believe there r 3 fusible links by the starter & I think 2 of them run power to other parts of the car.I think there is an orn. wire that supplies power to the fusebox may be a red wire,not sure at this time.As I have said b4 i'm no expert but have done my own work on my vehicles 4 many years now,&a possible problem with fusible links makes sense to me. good luck man.

 

cool, thanks for the help. i'll crawl under the car tomorrow and check it out.

 

there are 3 fuseable links at the starter, your battery cable and the ignition switch 12v.

1 fuseable link goes to your alternator
1 fuseable link goes to the fusebox(chassis 12v)
1 fuseable link goes to the ECM

the other 2 should be self-explanitory

 

yeah, go with the fusable links. I had one blow, and it made it so my car wouldnt start, or even turn over when I turn the key

 

check your starter, the postitive battery cable goes to the starter and then goes to accessories, but if the nut holding the cable and the other cables on is loose, every time you start the car, the starter moves and disconnects the wires. or mayb you can get it to start and then itll die. i just had this problem 5 hours ago, i shook my cable and it was loose, i grabbed my 5/8" wrench and tightened up the nut and took her out on the poor mans dyno (freeway onramp) for a run and the power stayed on.

 

you guys keep saying fusible link, where are these fuses? i crawled under there today, and didnt see anything out of the ordinary. read 4.7v at the starter's power terminal, shouldnt it have been 12v, or is that only when its turning over?

one thing i did notice though, theres a clipped black wire under my fusebox, i dont know if i bumped it loose while i was poking around looking at the wiring under there or if it was like this, but it could be the cause of my problem. i couldnt find anyplace that looked like it should plug into though? anyone have any idea?

 

[QUOTE=1meanGTA;3213079]you guys keep saying fusible link, where are these fuses? [QUOTE]

They attach to the starter on the same terminal as the battery cable, and are actually pieces of wire, not a fuse. There should be two of them on that terminal along with the 12V+ cable that goes to the battery. I would check your battery cables and the connections at the battery also, along with the battery terminals themselves. It should be 12V at the starter terminal all the time, never 4.7.

 

so the power to my accessories comes off that starter lead? 12v accessories will act as though theres no power at all if they're only getting 4-5v right? any thoughts on how it would work fine until i tried to start it, then fall on its face like that? i dont understand how it could read 4-5v at a terminal that should be wired directly to the battery which reads 12.

 

ALL the power to the car comes off of those two fusible links. If it reads 4-5 volts at the terminal on the starter, your problem should be somewhere from that point back to the battery. I.E. bad cable or connection at the battery, bad ground (as mentioned before) or bad battery or terminal. I would also measure how the voltage changes at the battery when you key it up, try to start it, etc.

 

this happened to me about a month ok. check over your battery cables. i had mine melt onto the header. that caused the same condition that you are talking about.

 

still no go. removing the ground would do nothing, but by just barely touching the positive connection on the battery, not really even moving any wires, it gives power again and reads 12v at the starter. soon as i try to start it, same thing, kills all power. i've been able to repeat this several times.

i didnt see the fusible links melted anywhere by the starter, but i also didnt see where they were smaller. thats what a fusible link is right, just a wire that gets smaller at one point so it melts and kills the circuit? where is the smaller portion of the wire? i did see where a portion of one had bumped the header but it didnt go all the way through the wire, and wouldnt have grounded. in any case, its away from the header and wouldnt be grounding now.

is there anything i can jury rig up just to get the thing started, i really only need it to run twice, to pull onto and back off the trailer, once i get it moved im going to garage it and completely redo the wiring throughout the car.

 

You have isolated the problem. Pull the positive cable off the battery and inspect it and the battery terminal for corrosion, etc. I have seen where the terminal breaks inside the battery and causes a similar problem. Do you have a spare battery to throw in there? You might want to have the battery load tested to verify it is A OK.

Will the car start if you use jumper cables or one of those portable jumper packs?? If so, just use one of those jumper packs to get it on and off the trailer.

 

you said it reads 12.0 v. st starter what a bout battery? is that just sitting there or a load test?un hook battery pos&neg. test just battery and with a load on it also.
rick

 

thats all it was, worked fine when i jumped it off my explorer, went out and bought a new battery and all is well. its in storage now, got it on the truck ok and im at my new place now. thanks for the help everyone!