The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Battery Cable Heats, No Crank Volts

Alrighty, this is a bit of a later year model truck than my '59, it's my '89, but I've been getting some conflicting answers to this issue, and I'd rather trust you all that know exactly what ya'll are doing. I have a very good NAPA battery, it's pretty new. I have some crappy emergency terminals, where the lead conductive coating is rubbing off. My issue is as follows: whenever I hit the key, the lights all dim way down, and the battery leads running from the terminal to the truck, ESPECIALLY the positive, get extremely hot. I cannot touch them without being burnt. It did not do this, until one day right after replacing the head, I was trying to get it to fire, and a fireball emanted from the TBI (Stupid me, they don't have any methodss for priming ... or for stupidity, otherwise I'd have brightness turned full up ...). Long story short, fast and quick fireball, that did no damage, as far as I could see. It kept cranking, then, when I had used up the battery just a bit more (stopping one minute between 10 second crank intervals), the abovemention issue came to play. I've recharged the battery thrice, no luck. Cables are very new, and have good continuity. Could the terminals not supplying enough power be the problem? (They don't heat up, which is what's making me curious.)

The heat indicates one of a couple of things. Too much resistance to current flow, or to much current draw.

I would make certain the cables are good, and with clean positive connections at both ends. If the cable still wants to heat up I'd be looking for why so much current is being drawn to heat that cable up.

Dan

Hy 59 rolling iron, did you reinstall all your ground wires after your head installation? The fuel system should prime itself as soon as you turn on the key. You may have a problem with your positive cable, try replacing it with a known good one, good luck.

You ran the starter until the battery ran down? That should have gotten the starter hot enough to burn.

You've got an internal short in the starter, or something's locking the crankshaft up enough to stall the starter down. Is the positive cable from the battery to the starter routed properly? If it's shorting out against something, you should be seeing some sparks, not just heat buildup. I'd suggest pulling the starter, and trying to run it on the bench with a hot battery and some jumper cables.
Jerry

cletis, over the course of a week, I ran it down cranking it every now and then with the time amounts listed above. 3B, I accidentally clipped a wire from the head to the frame, it was one of the green cloth-wire wrap like on the older style truck's ground straps. Will this affect the electrical flow enough to heat it up?

Hy 59 rolling iron, you can't have too many ground wires! Hotrod Lincoln may be right about a locked/shorted starter or a positive cable that is shorted against something. You mentioned poor quality ends, and I was wondering if the cable was becoming disconnected at the end/ends.I would try another cable, and if it's still the same, then pull the starter as Hotrod Lincoln suggested, hope that helps.

Thank you very much, fellows, this is the work machine, until I can get the '59 an engine behind it, you have no idea how much it helps to have suggestions. Will try replacing cables, all of 'em, and the starter.

Disconnect both battery cables.

Check for resistance between starter terminal and ground. They are often a low resistance but if you have a good meter youo may be able to see a very low resistance.

IF not then remove starter and test run on bench. Use a starter relay. I suspect the motor may be bad.

Get rid of those funky connections. If ANY connection is too hot to touch it is bad I mean BAD.


Dan Bntler

Your little ground strap wont affect the starter,the batt ground should be direct to the engine. It can affect other things on the body like lights and gauges.

If you have a good volt meter then check the battery voltage AT THE BATTERY TERMINALS when cranking the motor. Record the votlage. Now move the positive probe of the meter to the starter end of the positive cable and check the voltage at the starter while cranking. Ideally they will be the same on both tests. What I expect you will see is a large votlage drop when checked at the starter vs at the battery terminals. If this is so then you have a bad or undersized cable. You can also do the same on the ground cable to check it. Any voltage drop you see in the cables is bad, it is power that is being lost and not avaiable to the starter.

lg
no neat sig line

Alrighty, as you said, larry_g, I connected one of those battery testers up to my block, one right to a bolt beside the ground strap, one straight to batt +. Showed 10V, battery showed 13V. I hit the "load" test switch (A major resistor which just heats up, I believe), and volts dropped down to .5V. Now this may just be me, but if it's not enough to power a flashlight with a small load, this doesn't make sense as to why the headlights come on, or the starter even tries to crank. Thank you ALL for your amazing help!

It sounds to me like the ground cable is bad. If you have 13v at the battery UNDER LOAD and .5v when the load is moved to the block then the neg cable is very hi resistance and will drop most of the voltage.

lg
no neat sig line

i agree with Hot Rod Linkoln- you should check the starter. if your battery is bad, and your missing a ground strap here and there, its still not going to make your wires get hot; however an unfused ground (such as a short in the starter) will make the wires heat up even with a bad battery and a couple missing ground straps. if your still concerned about the block not being grounded grounded well- check the ohms between the neg terminal and the block. after having had some troubles with shorts on one of my cars i took to fusing the pos. cable right out of the gate; a 180 fuse wont protect from some of the smaller shorts, but it does give peace of mind that if the pos. cable shorts out (say it melts to a header or something) it wont ruin anything, just pop the fuse.

Okay, so ... Sorry for the long time since last confirmation of work/diswork. I reinstalled a NAPA Reman starter today, and didn't put a shim in (Very stupidly). I hit the key, heard a grinding sound, and as I killed it, I smelled something burning. The ground cable was hot enough to give someone burns if they held it (ask me how I know that one)! Would the accidental meshing up with the flexplate too hard do this, or do I just have major issues going on here?

so you put a different starter in and had the same problem more or less? have you checked resistance of your ground cable; from the negative post to the block? and when you say you heard a grinding sound- was the motor turning over at all, or was it just grinding from the starter to the fly wheel? if it was from the starter to the fly wheel you may want to try and manually turn the motor over to make sure that it is not jammed up.

That's a good point to make ... I hope it is not a jammed up engine, let's assume a valve got stuck, how much would hitting the key a few times have damaged the motor?

assuming it is just in that cylinder- bent valve; then you check for compression on the other cylinders (to make sure that it isnt the cam shaft that got stuck and that the piston hitting the valve didnt throw off the rest of the valves) and if you have compression on the other cylinders your in luck. then you gotta take off the head, have it checked for cracks and make sure the piston isnt tottaly f***ed up. and that is just if the valve is bent. broken is worse. im sure im not the only one that has been through it.

Thank all you guys for all the great ideas, but I finally found the problem with my foot, of all things! I suppose it's true that a guy's real power comes with cowboy boots ... Got in, kicked the ignition wires, and the lights went out. So I got down, listened as I hit the key, and one of the ignition wires was arcing so bad, it had half melted itself via plastic to the firewall. Funny how those electrons, so tiny, can annoy the living !&#$ out of people.