after siiting in an hour of traffic yesterday morning with wipers, lights, and defroster on, my car would not start when i tried to leave school. jumped it, and it ran fine. made it home, then left a few hours later and that time it started. wouldnt start again the next time. this morning wouldnt start either. i was looking around and noticed the main wire on the alt. was a little loose, but as soon as i touched it with a wrench, the damn nut broke off. i was able to get an alternator, and had my battery tested, which came out bad, so here i am with a new(reman) alternator, and a new battery. now the damn thing wont do ANYTHING. before it would try to start but sounded like the battery was going dead, then would just start clicking. now i cant get it to even turn. with the key on, none of my guages are working, normally the volt meter would go up. my lights do work, so the battery has charge(plus its new). what the hell is going on with my car!@???. ive already missed 2 classes today, and i really need to figure this out

 

Oh man.. Please re-check your polarity and pray to god you didnt hook up the battery backwards. Not to insult your intelligence, but it happens more often then you think!!

 

no. polarity is fine. like i said, the lights do work, so its getting something

 

oh man, I have seen bad things happen when the battery is hooked up backwards..........

 

battery is hooked up correctly

 

any other suggestions?????

 

you know how to do the hammer and screwdriver trick to the starter?

 

also make sure you check your batt connections.

 

IF the headlights go up/down and light up but no lights in the interior, then you've lost your power to the ignition switch.

A lot of times it gets lost by people working around the battery/a/c compressor area. Just about six inchec below the ENGINE fuse box there is a single black wire with a connector also connecting to another black wire. Make sure that connector is ........connected. THAT is the wire that feeds your ignition switch. The headlights are on another circuit, that's why they are working and the starter is not.

 

well here's where i'm at now...the main fuse was blown, the alternator had an extra post on there for something that i put the main wire on, i switched that to the right one, and it started up. right now im just letting it the car run with a load on it to make sure everythings charging and operating correctly. i'm going to need to put a belt on as soon as i can because the alt is up to the max on the tensioner and belt is still a little loose. as long as it is still spinning and staying on, it should be ok to charge the battery correct? thanks for the help guys

 

yes........but it won't be ok to turn the waterpump...keep an eye on your temp. and replace the belt ASAP!!

 

damn didnt think about that. thanks for the heads up!

 

finally fixed. so here's what happened. the old alternator had a loose charge wire bolt. when i went to tighten it, the stud broke. put in new alternator just how i took the old one out, and when i put the battery cables on, it blew my main fuse. tried it again, blew another one. finally i figured out the charge wire was grounding out because it was against the alternator, and there was supposed to be a plastic piece to keep it from touching. this wasnt on my old alt, so i took it off the new one. so that fixed the problem. i am thinking that because that plastic piece was not on the old alternator, it was grounding out some, but because the nut was loose it wasnt strong enough to blow the fuse. i'm glad to finally have this fixed. thanks for the help guys.
oh and i was even feeling good enoughto put in a new handle today. so i finally dont have to open the door for mypassengers