Nice electrical problem

Kinda long story so im gonna try to make it quick.

I was offroading, my optima came loose i guess and moved forward so it was touching the radiator, and the part that was touching melted and burned up. I saw smoke coming from my wires, and a ton of smoke from my brakes.

Anyways i get it home, everything is dead as can be, i take an old battery with almost no juice left in it and put it in the jeep. The lights and everything worked, as well as cb, and stereo. Try to start it but not enough juice in battery.

Next day we go try to return the optima, but they said it wasnt the optimas fault, so im out a brand new 140 doller battery, and i go to kragen and get a 80 doller one. Get home, pop it in, and my voltage is almost in the red.

Drive to kragen to see if they can test my alternator. They hook up to it and they say, how old is this battery? I say 15 minutes or so. He says, the battery is completly dead. So they gave me a new one, and they said my charging system is okay.

Heres where it gets good (if your still reading, i thank you)

So whenever i use my blinker, the TEMP/VOLTAGE/OIL PRESSURE gauges move with the blinker. When the blinker blinks, they drop a bit, then when it stops its blink, it goes back up, over and over. When i turn the stereo on and also the blinker, stereo dies. My voltage is usualy in the red, on the low side, while im driving.

Last night i was goin home from work, had my dim *** lights on and everything. Im at a stop light, it turns green, as soon as i hit the gas, everything came back to life. Voltage was right in the middle, lights were bright as day, i was pretty excited. I come up to the next light, tap the breaks, everything dies back down to the old way. Voltage in the red, etc. Light turns green, everything comes back up, i put my blinker on, everything died again. And that is where we stand. It never came back to life after that. And by die i mean the voltage went into the red but motor still ran.

YOu guys have witnessed my longest post ever.

I checked all the fuses, but i have no idea what to do. I want to just bring it into firestone and get charged 1000 bucks or so.

What would you check?

Switch1625 said:

Kinda long story so im gonna try to make it quick.

I was offroading, my optima came loose i guess and moved forward so it was touching the radiator, and the part that was touching melted and burned up. I saw smoke coming from my wires, and a ton of smoke from my brakes.

Anyways i get it home, everything is dead as can be, i take an old battery with almost no juice left in it and put it in the jeep. The lights and everything worked, as well as cb, and stereo. Try to start it but not enough juice in battery.

Next day we go try to return the optima, but they said it wasnt the optimas fault, so im out a brand new 140 doller battery, and i go to kragen and get a 80 doller one. Get home, pop it in, and my voltage is almost in the red.

Drive to kragen to see if they can test my alternator. They hook up to it and they say, how old is this battery? I say 15 minutes or so. He says, the battery is completly dead. So they gave me a new one, and they said my charging system is okay.

Heres where it gets good (if your still reading, i thank you)

So whenever i use my blinker, the TEMP/VOLTAGE/OIL PRESSURE gauges move with the blinker. When the blinker blinks, they drop a bit, then when it stops its blink, it goes back up, over and over. When i turn the stereo on and also the blinker, stereo dies. My voltage is usualy in the red, on the low side, while im driving.

Last night i was goin home from work, had my dim *** lights on and everything. Im at a stop light, it turns green, as soon as i hit the gas, everything came back to life. Voltage was right in the middle, lights were bright as day, i was pretty excited. I come up to the next light, tap the breaks, everything dies back down to the old way. Voltage in the red, etc. Light turns green, everything comes back up, i put my blinker on, everything died again. And that is where we stand. It never came back to life after that. And by die i mean the voltage went into the red but motor still ran.

YOu guys have witnessed my longest post ever.

I checked all the fuses, but i have no idea what to do. I want to just bring it into firestone and get charged 1000 bucks or so.

What would you check?

Click to expand...

you have a short in one of the circuts that got overloaded from the accidental grounding of your battery. check the resistance across the terminals (battery bisconnected if you like your meter) while pulling fuses and relays for all systems (sounds like lighting or abs maybe?) and narrow it down to the system that is giving you issues then start the job of tracing all the wiring.

You might also want to check the ground strap from the engine to the frame. Not sure of your year model but the are usually at the rear of the engine to the frame....a braided strap.

Last time I had a battery jump and it grounded to the hood, the strap burnt into and although it still ran.....it was like it had demons/ghosts or something as things were acting weird. Hope that helps!

Second Sig220: this sounds much more like a ground problem than a short. check for corroded, burned and resistive connections as well as just plain burned through. If very high current went through the ground strap it might have created a resistive condition where it bolts to the frame. I had constant problems with this on my plow truck, owing to the draw from the electric lift, until I rerouted the ground to a big brass buss bar. The connection looked good but it wasn't.

If it helps at all, i dont know much about electrical, or anything for that matter.

All this information is helpful for me, im gonna go to a friends house and hes gonna help.

Thanks for all the help so far. I might go out and push some wires around tonight.

Well, i replaced my negative cable, and it didnt fix it. But check out my old cable, yes its striped.



And my battery

2x the body to engine cable also look at the parking brake cable. After a dead short takes out the B to E ground cable. The currant may travel from the body down the parking brake cable to the brakes up the drive train then back to the battery. And this may be how you body is getting grounded now but this is a piss poor way to ground a body as you can see.
May ALL Jello batterys die such a horable death.

Don't forget to check th braided ground strap between the rear of the engine and the firewall.

2X you burned a ground wire off somewhere.

HI,

i would try putting volt meter across batt engine running look for 14v, turn engine off should have 12v (make sure every thing off) if voltage is low something is pulling your battery down , short curcuit, if so try pulling fuses as mentioned above till voltage comes back up . if you think it's a bad earth use a wondering earth strap a jumper lead clip to your batt neg then clp to body , engine etc.........good luck