The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Shorting battery plates

My 54 GMC (6V +grnd) has shorted the battery out when I engaged the starter. The battery was charged and the lights and horn would work. But after hitting the starter pedal, all electric is immediately lost and the battery will not hold a charge. Would this be the starter or some other more sinister problem?

Kdrown,

To my knowledge, a battery with a shorted cell will not take a charge. Your post seems to assume you know the battery has a shorted cell but you are asking if your problem could be elsewhere.

Maybe I don't understand. If you know the battery is bum then that's your problem. If you have an electrical problem and aren't sure of the origin, then it could be the battery or it could be something else. To troubleshoot this deal, you need to keep an open mind and prove each component OK as you go down your check list. You will eventually come to an item that isn't OK and you have found your gremlin. Does this make sense?

Stuart

Sounds like you are trying to decide if the started killed the battery before you kill another new one.

My experience with 6 volts is mostly from my tractor & not my truck, but they are usually pretty stout. I would start with a brand new battery. They come with a warranty so you can replace it for free if you blow another one up.

Usually a starter is hooked directly to a battery terminal and then the switch has a solinoid. I just don't see how kicking the starter can destroy the battery. If your generator is messed up maybe, but you would have to run it for a long time to kill the batt. Plus you would smoke the gen before the batt goes.

My guess is you have a battery with a bad cell, same as your guess. Sometimes that happens.

I had been considering that the battery may have been going bad. It is about a year old. It just through me a little, cause I had been driving the 54, it sat a couple of days and then went dead to the world when starting. I'll try a new battery this weekend. Thanks for the reply's.

It sounds like a poor connection - I would check all of them first. The most common connection problems are at the battery. If the wires going to the terminals are loose, or the terminals are loose on the battery posts, you will have a problem similar to what you are experiencing. One guy here even found an open(break) inside the wire going to his starter.

I've had problems with some of the new-design high cranking amp batteries burning out cell connectors with little or no warning. The battery will work fine on one startup, and then it will be open-circuited on the next try. It sounds like you've experienced a sudden internal connector failure. It's not common, but it happens occasionally. Get a new battery, with a warranty, and try again. It would be almost impossible to kill a battery with anything short of a totally grounded-out starter motor, and there should be some definite evidence of that!
Jerry

After almost 5 years, I recently replaced the battery on my '46 1-1/2 ton. Your symptoms sould like mine before I got the new battery. A battery that does not produce sufficient cranking amperage will turn the starter motor furtively and slowly--once, twice, or maybe three times, then stop turning, not recover, or make one more partial turn before giving up.

The situation is not good for a lot of electrical things inside the starting and electrical system. Voltage drops low, current (amps) continues to flow, but at such a reduced rate that nothing is working right, and most of the current is just used to produce heat in the wiring, components (coil, distributor, generator, starter motor, and regulator) and battery.

I have a 6 volt original electrical system. The battery is a wet cell with access plugs, that is, the three holes in the top of the battery you can open to add water and look inside (sort of).

Once these batteries start to get weak and not hold a full charge, you end up with a "top charge" or partial charge, which is insufficient to provide enough amperage to crank the starter motor one or two turns. Hence, the battery appears to go "dead" when you try to start the engine, and it won't recover.

This will always happen when the air temperature is 106 degrees fahrenheit, or 23 degrees below zero. That way you will be the most uncomfortable whe you have to remove the mats and floorboard to change the battery.

Lights and horn may work up until you drain the charge by trying to start the engine, but even the other electrical things will act weak and lifeless.

Solution, new battery.

I spent $80 on the battery, a new cable from the battery to the starter motor connection post and a new ground strap from the battery to the bolt on top of the tranny case.

Now, when I mash the starter, the starter motor spins at full speed, the engine fires after one revolution at most, and then slows down to idle speed. That's the way it should be.