Battery

[RobbieV]

Right the car was running fine up to a week ago, went out to car and the battery was flat !

So trickle charge overnight went to fit battery and had a problem.

Fitted Red cable (positive) to + terminal on battery, then fitted earth (negative) to - terminal and started to get very large sparks and the earth cable started to get very warm and started to smoke !

What is the fault ?

[Callyman]

Possibly the starter/solenoid shorted (which would kill battery in the 1st place)
Poss way to test for that is connect the terminlas and turn ignition on, see if the starter cranks when it shouldnt

[RobbieV]

Possibly the starter/solenoid shorted (which would kill battery in the 1st place)
Poss way to test for that is connect the terminlas and turn ignition on, see if the starter cranks when it shouldnt

How do i check that without a battery ?

[Stupink]

if you're drawing that much current the battery cable is getting hot i wouldnt connect the battery really. but yeah sounds like the large feed to either the alternator or the starter has gone to earth.

if you do put the battery on for a few seconds, which i dont reccomend, either the starter or the alternator should get hot

[RobbieV]

Cheers guys, will get under the car tomorrow for a look.

Could be the reason why my battery goes flat after a while !

[Stupink]

if you dont have a batt and have a multimeter you could remove the thick wire from the starter and alternator and check those two terminals for conductivity to earth.(check the wire is not broken through on the shrouding also

[RobbieV]

if you dont have a batt and have a multimeter you could remove the thick wire from the starter and alternator and check those two terminals for conductivity to earth.(check the wire is not broken through on the shrouding also

Will do that tomorrow aswell.

[Fraz]

have you tried another battery?? and how old is this one??

could be a buckled plate in the battery

[RobbieV]

Don't have another battery and this battery is about 9 months old, could a buckled plate cause the earth lead to heat up, smoke and sparks fly ?

[Fraz]

did steve not have this when the heat shield around the starter got broken and shorted the main starter wire

[RobbieV]

Problem sorted, Battery charger is broken, part of the charging circuit inside was damaged and reversed the charging polarity. so when the battery was being charged it reversed the batteries polarity hence the damage to the earth cable.

[Callyman]

Interesting one that Robbie.

[Stupink]

Bloody hell.. i hope no damage has been done!
nice to solve it though, and that was a really wierd one, so good on for finding it

[Phantom]

I've heard of this before, just that the battery had the leads put on the wrong terminals and it had charged it opposite, I do believe this is possible with a fully dischraged battery

[RobbieV]

I've heard of this before, just that the battery had the leads put on the wrong terminals and it had charged it opposite, I do believe this is possible with a fully dischraged battery

That's what the auto tech said (my battery was almost dead) then he checked the charger and found the problem.