I just bought my car recently so consequently I have very little experience with rotary engines and their layout. My car definitely has an electrical problem for starters. The battery has drained on three seperate occasions and one time the car wouldn't start even though the battery was charged. I pushed it across the street and just for the hell of it, turned the key and it fired right up.

This morning I got in it to go to work and the battery was completely dead. I put my battery charger on it and let it charge for a half hour or so and tried to start the car and got a whole bunch of clicks and the engine wouldnt turn over. If anyone has had this issue or a similar issue or can advise where the problem might be that would be great. I miss my car already, I had to take my girlfriends 88 Volvo station wagon to work today . Thanks.

 

Welcome to the club... (in every form, get used to fixing your car )

Well it first sounds like parasistic drain. The "clicking" comes from not having enough amperage in the battery to turn the starter. It takes anywhere from 50-600 amps IMO depending on starting conditions.

The general concensus is you won't be starting the car if the battery has below ten volts of juice on the volt meter on the gauge set.

There is however a possibility of corrosion on the battery plugs. Remove the battery posts and remove all the corrosion (usually white green nasty ****). Its happens over time. Badly corroded posts will give the illusuion of parasystic drain and a dead battery, when infact it was nothing more than having so much corrosion that the car couldn't get sufficient power through the posts.

That said, if you try to rollstart the car and the back tires just lockup, you may be looking at a locked engine. They're are a few ways to deal with this... one is to get a reverse starter (turns the opposite direction) to try to unlodge the initial problem. Either way, at this point you're probably looking at a rebuild because if the engine was locked that badly, you probably wedged a piece of carbon between the housing and apex seal... this does some nasty **** to the housings and apex seal.

I highly doubt that happened... but meh.

BTW: 88 volvo... nice ride

 

The battery may simply be worn out.
Most auto parts stores will load test it for free.

As Kenteth said, check the cables & connections.
A bad connection will often get hot when trying to crank the engine.

To find which circuit is causing an electrical drain:
Remove the battery ground and jumper in a small 12 volt light.
Pull and replace the fuses one at a time and watch for the light to go out.

 

Most ghetto amp meter award. But hey, at least it works...

 

Gheetofabulous, get it right.

 

Yeah, when I had this problem the first time I cleaned the battery posts but like I said, I only charged the battery for a half hour because I didn't want to be late to work. I think that there is a drain somewhere else in the electrical system. I'll get the battery tested tonight.

When testing the system, I should just remove the negative post and then what? Sorry, don't have much experience in dealing with engine work, I'm only 19 and just started to get into cars. Thanks for the help.

 

Since it sounds like you're ignoring SureShot's wise advice, do a simple version of the recommendation. Disconnect the negative (or positive, your choice) battery terminal any time the car is going to be parked longer than about an hour. If it still seems you're discharging all of the time, you have a charging system problem. If everything gets "all better" now, you have an abnormal drain. Do what SureShot says in that case...

 

Good idea SureShot. Just did it on my lunch break and found the problem. I already have my friend working on it. Thanks for the help.