Flat Battery

Andy_L

Left the ignition on and disconnected the battery for some manfiold welding.

Re connected the battery and started up fine drove it home. Went out to start it just now and it is flat, does not even turn the car over.

It's gone flat in around 90 minutes.

Have I done something very wrong?

We did not weld the manifold in the end as the crack is too big.

BURT150

Did you do any welding at all on the car? even a tack?

Its a dodgy game welding in situe.

did you take both terminals off the battery?

Andy_L

BURT150 said:
Did you do any welding at all on the car? even a tack?

Its a dodgy game welding in situe.

did you take both terminals off the battery?

Burt, no did not even fire the welder up. Took one look at the manifold and realised the crack was too big to weld.

Yes I did take both terminals off

BURT150

And going back over what you did you didn't disconect anything or move anything else then?

Get yourself a multy meter and test the battery voltage and also test the alternator by having the car idling then turn everything on you can ie heaters aircon sterio lights and all that then you can test the voltage and see if the alt is doing its job, After recharging the battery tho :thumbup:

Andy_L

BURT150 said:
And going back over what you did you didn't disconect anything or move anything else then?

Get yourself a multy meter and test the battery voltage and also test the alternator by having the car idling then turn everything on you can ie heaters aircon sterio lights and all that then you can test the voltage and see if the alt is doing its job, After recharging the battery tho :thumbup:

Burt, no absolutely nothing at all.

BURT150

Time to get a meter on it then. You should know what it is after that.

JohnnyN

Very strange. The battery cables are reconnected nice and tight?

Andy_L

JohnnyN said:
Very strange. The battery cables are reconnected nice and tight?

Yes they are, made sure of that, could they be a bit dirty and that causing the problem??

Andy_L

Finally got round to updating if anyone is interested.

Phoned up the RAC - very helpful guy turned up after around 40 minutes which as great but my tea went cold :thumbdown:

Got the battery charging and the thing wouldn't start as the immob decided not enough charge in the battery so we were stuck for a while. He read some fault codes off it and I texted Benny with many random questions - thanks for the answers fella was a big help.

Eventually got it started and battery charging but as soon as he took it off charge the voltage dropped straight off.

So new battery, the one thing I have noticed is that occassionally when the car is warm it still starts! It used to crank over but not fire, but would a second time. So don't know if the battery was running on empty so to speak.