Jesse Robinson wrote:
>
> 1. Every once in a while car won't start. Clicks though.
> 2. Put car in gear and pushed the car 5', still won't start.
> 3. Tried jumping, still won't start.
> 4. Got 13 volts off the battery, 11ish while cranking.
> 5. Jump started it to get home.
>
Well, this may not be the solution to your problem (it just may be, who
knows) but certainly is a trap for us newbies. I also suffered
intermittent electrical problems like this.
Check where the negative lead from the battery bolts to the car
chassis/body under the car. Plenty of opportunity for it to get covered
in road muck there (unless it bolts elsewhere - I just assumed that this
was the normal place for it to be).
Unbolt it and clean contact point and connector.
Yes, totally unbolt it and check it... in my case it was a strange
problem because just cleaning this point didn't solve the problem. I
initially had intermittent electrical hassles that I narrowed down to
this cable or the battery terminal. I would wiggle the
terminal/connector on the battery and all would be well. So I replaced
the battery terminal connector (and just to throw me off the scent, when
I undid the connector it came apart in my hand - cheap brass casting!).
This seemed to solve the problem, as did the cleaning of the connecting
point... for a while. But it would just re-occur before too much
longer.
When I finally decided to replace the negative cable all together I
found the REAL cause. All that fiddling 'up top' had done was mask the
problem 'down below'. When I took the cable off totally, the metal
loop/eye on the bolt end underneath the car literally pulled out a few
strands of battery cable and fell out in my hand.
I replaced the negative battery cable and had not a further problem all
the weekend (18 hours drive and competition).
This will teach me to not be thorough the fist time/s!
Eric
'68MGB MkII
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