Okay so, im in college, and i can't have my car on campus until next year, so my 1988 GXL sits in my fathers building while I'm at school. Im in south carolina so it rarely gets into extreme temperatures. The car has been sitting for about a month, i got home for the beginning of my winter break and i did some work on it, I changed the oil, oil filter, fuel filter (it needed to be done), and air filter(also needed to be done), I also changed my plugs, and I changed the plug wires, i used the NGK wiring set, blue for trailing, black for leading. Well, i go to drive the car after I'm all done, and it does not start, doesn't turn over, and no lights come on at all. So i got it jumped off, and it started fine. I drove to wear i had to go, turned it off, and same problem it wouldn't start. So today I had the battery and the alternator tested because i suspected that one or both of those two would be the culprit, they are both fine. So now i believe that i have a bad ground somewhere. I think that the car is grounding on the car i am using to jump it with when i jump start it, and thats why it starts then. So basically, when i open the door the door lights come on just fine. When i turn the key a quarter turn the warning lights comes on and all as well, it reads 12.7 volts on my voltmeter, and then when i clutch in and turn the key as to start it, it entirely dies, save the door lights, they stay on. They car is bridge ported and has aftermarket exhaust, but other than that it has relatively few mods. So i believe that i have a bad ground. I read over Aaron Cakes grounding write up, but none of the grounds listed were dealing with the ignition grounds, i checked the main battery grounds and they seemed fine, I am going to clean them shortly. Anyhow, what do you guys think? Any help would be much appreciated because id really like to drive my car during my break. Thanks.

 

What dies w/key to start? You have two sets of fuses that have power w/key to on and they are called IG1 and IG2. IG1 fuse have power w/key to on and key to start. IG2 fuses have power w/key to on but not key to start and this is because the power to the circuits using IG2 fuses are depowered to save enough voltage to power the starting circuit. Once the car starts the IG2 powered circuits regain their power.

When the car is running the alternator output cable should read 14 volts or so. This voltage needs to be sufficient enough to keep the battery charged (at least 13 volts is required for this to happen).

 

With key to on i have my warning lights, aftermarket gauges (oil psi, temp, and voltmeter). When i turn key to start i lose all of that. When the car is on, after driving it for a minute the voltmeter usually rests right at 14.

 

update: I went outside to turn key and all again, this time, when i turned the key to on, none of my lights or gauges came on, when i turned to start, the Emergency brake light came on very dimly, the emergency brake is pulled up so that light should be on. But when i released the key because the engine did not turn over, it made an odd "click click click" noise. it came from the engine bay. When i repeated it did the exact same thing again.

 

The lights you speak of should stop because they are powered by the IG2 fuses. Secondly, the clicking sound is likely coming from the main relay and chances are the battery is to weak. At the starter cut relay (located next to the main relay and has one plug only) there is a B/W wire. This wire runs to the starter solenoid. If you run a wire from the positive battery terminal to the B/W wire at the starter relay w/the car in neutral the starter should turn over if there is enough juice to do so. If it doesn't turn over then chances are the battery is too weak.

 

At the terminals the battery reads 12.76 volts, if you read it at the connectors for the battery to the rest of the system, they only read about 10.53 and it fluctuates down into the 9s and then back up. Also if I continue to read at this location, every key position makes it drop lower and lower, when the key is in the run position, at the connectors it only reads 3.82 volts.

 

One possibility is the cable connections to the battery are poor. Might want to clean them up and make sure they are snug tight to the respective terminals.

 

The positive cable is warm, noticeably warmer than any of its surroundings

 

The negative cable grounds to the driver fender before making its way to the starter. The positive cable runs to the starter and the smaller positive cable runs to the engine fuse box.

The heat is usually a function of resistance so either the connections or the cables are poor.

If the battery smells like sulfur then the battery is bad.

 

There is no smell of sulfur, upon removing the cables to clean the terminals and the connectors, i noticed that the positive connector looks significantly worse than the negative connector, also the two wires, the one going to the starter, and the one going to the engine fuse box, are significantly loose, loose enough to jiggle around, and i feel that i could pull them from their seat on the connector, so because the positive connector looks so bad I'm going to go to advance now and buy a new connector so i can replace this one.