AggieOO

i have an 86. alternator and battery are both good.

turn the key part of the way and everything powers up. turn it all the way over and there's a single click and everything goes dead. no power until i disconnect the battery cable and reconnect, then the same thing happens.

86VetteBill

Here's a good test to see if it's the battery or the solenoid. Turn on your headlights and then turn over your ignition key. If the headlights go out, it's the battery (I guess you could have a bad solenoid too, but in this test you're testing the battery's ability to deliver).

If the lights stay bright and you only get a click it's the solenoid.

Worst possibility? It's a siezed or frozen engine. Fluid in the cylinder stops the piston from pushing up. Or the rings are rusted to the cylinder walls. Hope that's NOT it.

jfb

VATS won't cause no power when you hit crank on the ign sw! Remove both battery cables (neg first). Clean both the cable lugs and the battery posts and reconnect (neg last). Put a voltmeter on the battery terminals and try cranking the engine. The battery voltage should not fall below 9.0 volts (while the starter is cranking) or the battery is discharged or at the end of its life. Install a known good battery and try a crank.

fiddleplayer

Over the years, I've had both a frozen alternator and a frozen A/C compressor which kept the engine from turning over also. You might try removing the belt to eliminate these. The easiest way to troubleshoot the starter is to get a remote starter switch and hook directly to the solenoid. If it turns over, your problem is somewhere else, if not you've possibly identified the culprit, providing you have checked the battery as mentioned previously.

FP

MyZ51

You've got a bad connection somewhere.... Check connection at starter, and check ground connections too. Do you know how to do a voltage drop test?
If you have a multimeter, you can do this test to check connections. Take one of the leads from tester and put it on positive battery terminal, take the other and put it on the big starter wire. Multi meter should be set on volts. Have someone try to crank engine, if your meter reads more than 1.5volts you have a bad connection between the battery and the starter. You can do the same thing with the ground. One lead on the negative side of battery, and the other to the block, crank it and see what the voltage drop is. Anything over 1.5 volts is too much. I will usually check at block first, if voltage drop is high, go to the cable where it's attached to block, and work your way back to battery, untill you find where there is less voltage drop, that's were your problem will be.

vinnies87

Good info,,, didn't know that... learned something new today... thanks :thumbs:

SPD DMN

Sounds like a bad ground. If everything is going dead when you try to start the car, then it is breaking the connection. Make sure when you put that negative terminal back on the battery that it is clean as well as good and tight.

AggieOO

well its not seized or frozen. I got it to start last night and got it home...it was previously at my friend's apt complex. but now that its home, its not starting again. not sure why it started last night, i didn't do anything different.

thanks for the info, i'll see what i can do.