i drove my car home from the shop on friday without the alternator hooked up. the shop said it was bad and needed to be replaced. today (tuesday) i bought a new alternator, installed it, and tried to start the car. No luck. No electricity. On the passenger's side fender there was a wire, with one end unconnected. There was a place on the negative terminal of the battery where a uncovered wire lay. I hooked this wire up to the wire on the inside fender, and the electric fan started turning. I then proceeded to my cockpit, and turned the key over. sparks flew from the place that i had just connected, but the car didnt start. What did I do? What will I have to replace, What do i have to hook up? Please help, i have no idea what happened and I need this car to run.

 

-scratches head- so ..... let me get this story straight

You drove your car w/o a alternator (I've actually done this before, alternator - wp belt snapped off on my mom's car, and i drove it home another 2 miles after that... I had no idea how lmao.. guess there was a hefty charge in that sucker hah),

then you replaced the alternator the next day, and forgot to ground a wire from the alternator to the battery, but ground it from the alternator to the chassis?

I would have your battery load-tested, and bring your alternator in there with it too just incase.

You'll have to go through your fusible links and check them, they're more than likely burnt out. If that doesnt work then off to your regular fuses.

 

can someone send me a picture of what a battery is supposed to look like? i'm talking about the connections and where the wires go. thanks

 

In my car its two wires and one has a red cap designating positive. Convienently there are two terminals on my battery and one is marked positive so I figured it out.

 

well i know that, i just don't know where the wire is from the battery to the fuse block. i also don't know where the fusibles are. i know where the positive and negative terminals are.

 

Oh good, I was worried for a moment.

 

so can someone tell me what i have to check? i have heard about fusibles and fuses and relays, how do i check these, how do i know if they are broken. if someone has a link to this information, thats great. i just need a solution

 

A fuse is just a think piece of wire in a tube that blows once too much current travels through it. Get a meter, there should be 0 ohm resistance if its working, if not it will be infinite. Relays you can usually hear click when they activate but thats not sure fire way. Just check for continuity (0 resistance).

 

0 ohms of restance... how is that possible. everything has some type of ohm reading. and it's usssaly not 0.

 

make sure the batter isn't conected when doing test with a ohm meter. or it's a live circut. you will destory you multimeter.

 

You can check resistance on a live circuit without blowing a multimeter. I Have done it many times.

 

My apologies, a fuse should have a reading of about 0.03 ohms. Its just a straight wire.

 

thanks for all the help, but i was stupid, and didn't even check if there was a ground or not. when i replaced the alternator i forgot to hook up the negative ground. i hooked it up, and it runs fine. thanks again.