JKM

Well my car (91 FC) has had quite a time today, and although everything seems to be working fine now, it still doesn't start up quite right.

This is pretty long, but I'm gonna mention EVERY detail so I can provide as much info as I can without leaving anything out.

Yesterday, I was going to see about changing out my driver's side auto seatbelt motor, since mine had never worked and I had one from a junk RX-7. I pull off the little plastic piece behind the seat and find two wires that are unplugged. I plug them back up, and I hear the seatbelt motor come on, but the belt doesn't move at all. Well all I have is the motor, not the railings, so it won't do me any good, I'll just yell at the dealership until they fix it for free sometime. No biggie. I then drive around for about 20 minutes for fun.

I wake up and go to work this morning (car is sitting for 15 hours by now) and it doesn't crank. The starter is going, the engine is trying to turn over but it doesn't crank. The starter sounds REALLY strange, kinda like you were playing back the normal starter at half speed on a tape.

At this point, I'm thinking either the battery is dead or I'm flooded. I've never had my car flood before, but I pulled the EGI fuse and did the unflooding trick, it didn't help. Called my girlfriend, and I use her car to jumpstart mine. The car starts roughly, spits out quite a bit of smoke, and idles. So then I go on my merry way to work. I don't live too far away. The car's running rough, kinda like if you are driving with fouled up spark plugs. I just changed my plugs so that shouldn't be it. About halfway there, the check engine light comes on and my tachometer dies. Car is still running fine, but no tach. I pull over, cut off the car and immediately crank it again. It doesn't want to crank, but it has just enough juice to start up. Engine light is gone, tach is fine, I go to work.

So now I'm thinking "dead battery, no biggie." On my lunch break, I crank the car (still rough, but starts) and let it run idle for 30 minutes so the battery can build up some charge.

As I'm walking to my car after work, it occurs to me that the cable that was disconnected that went to my auto belts was wrapped in electrical tape... and the reason my battery was dead was probably one of those cables hitting a metal ground and draining the battery. D'oh! I wrap the exposed part in electrical tape, and drive.

The car has a difficult time starting, but after it gets warmed up, it runs like a champ again. I drive all over town, and it drives perfectly. Well, not perfectly, but as well as it did before I go to my parents' house and borrow a battery charger, then drive back home.

I get home, hook up the battery charger, set it for a slow trickle (2 amps) and leave it for a while. I come back and it has a weird reading.. the Full Charge light is on, then the needle bounces down to 75%, then goes back up to full charge again. It does this repeatedly. I haven't used a battery charger in ages...maybe it's supposed to do that to prevent overcharging? I don't have the manual.

Well the car cranks right up now with no problems...BUT the slow starting sound that it's been making all day is still there. It doesn't actually take very long to start it, but that sound bugs me. Anyone have any ideas?

Turbonut

iTrader: (1)

Have the battery/alternator tested. Local parts store will do free of charge. If ok, check for a battery drain.
Configure your meter by plugging the + lead of the meter into the Amps/Current socket instead of the usuall Volts/Ohms socket.
Pull the positive battery cable off of the battery.
Connect the + lead to the + battery terminal and the - lead to the + battery cable, connecting the circuit.
Look at the meter. This is how many (milli)amps you're drawing with the car off.
You can now start pulling fuses and look at the meter. When it drops to zero you've found your drain.