I have had this low mileage 88 TII for about 6 yrs now and hardly put 500 miles in a year. The battery was left in and connected for a period over winter. I wanted to start the car a couple weeks ago and connected the charger but the needle pegged on the charger as soon as hooked to battery.
I took the battery to AutoZone where it was purchased in July. They said it had somehow reversed pollarity. They replaced the battery no-charge.
My thought is or was before I even put the new battery in is what electronics is fried on the car.
Sure enough I put the new battery in and no start.
Cranks fine, smell fuel but seems like no spark.
Any initial thought on what is most likely fried or what and how to test/check would be appreciated.

 

if a battery "reversed polarity" i would assume it would blow your main 80amp fuse, in which case you would have no crank and such.
and you say seems like no spark, why not confirm that.

 

Like I said it does crank and I was not in any position to make any other checks. I am not at the location of the car now. Thanks for the reply.

 

Most likely, the ecu is fried!

 

Check all fuses in engine bay that relate to engine.. then try the ignition fuse under the dash.,

 

All fuses good in engine bay. Replaced ECU and car started right up. Some blown fuses under dash yet to be replaced.

 

Looks like I won the jackpot

 

Yes you did Furb. I hav'nt figured out your prize yet.

 

2 of these cases in the same week. I was fortunate enough for my situation to have blown the 80amp fusible link and the 15 amp inline fuse to my Microtech. Still had to replace the battery, but was saved from having to replace the standalone.

Glad you found your issue. I guess the winter you and I have had up here was so cold the battery didn't know what to do and switched on us. My story is almost identical to yours. Now If I can just get mine dialed in on the tuning, I'll be good to go.

JTB

 

Winner!
you get to Taste test recipes from the Colorado Pot Cookie Baking championship...enjoy!!!

 

A car I'm getting the guy did this same thing and the car has a microtech. Lt10s standalone in it , all the lights still come on for the ecu so I'm hoping it's fine.

He did blow some fuses...car wouldn't start but it hasn't ran in years...I'll be looking further into it after I get the car and can really test the ecu with a laptop

 

I still have no tach and the audio has a short somewhere, keeps blowing that fuse.

 

room fuse? or is the meter fuse? cant remember off the top of my head. factory radio?

 

Make sure the trailing coil is working as that is where the tach gets its signal from. You can use the lead coil to run the tach by jumpering the wire at the lead coil which is just a stubby wire connected to nothing to the same wire at the trailing coil.

And which fuse keeps blowing as it has a name. Is it the radio fuse or not?

 

And do you have the factory unit or an aftermarket one. And if you have the factory unit does it have door speakers or not?

 

Thanks. I will check the trailing coil. The fuse is listed as "audio" with factory unit and no door speakers.

 

The fuse powers the radio and the power antenna (powers the Blue/White wire to each). You can try unplugging the plug for the power antenna. Then put another good fuse in. If it pops then the radio needs to be unplugged to see if the fuse still blows. If it does then the wire powering either of the two components is accidentally grounded out. Testing for continuity to ground would tell you if this were the case. W/no key you would take one meter terminal placed to a ground source and the other terminal to the L/W wire and if it rings out then you know the wire is grounded out.