Outer Limits 4x4 Board

got a prob in my little zook thats giving me the shites

on 2 occations i have gone to start it and the battery sounds dead(but new battery) after a few seconds of winding slowly over, it frys the accel cable.

what could be making this, theres an earth going from battery to body and from batt to engine. do i need another earth from car to engine?
if i leave it for a while, it will start fine.
confused.....


edit: duh i should learn to correct my mistakes.
earth from battery to engine*

You should have a heavy duty earth going directly from the battery negative to the engine block. Your accelerator cable is becoming a current path and over heating!

big thick cable going directly from battery to starter motor is already there.

it happened to my sierra, and broke the cable had to join it up with a barrier strip!

three different times its happened
1st time used the bonnet release cable
2nd got my bros off his zook
3rd used my shoelace

Spike_Sierra wrote:big thick cable going directly from battery to starter motor is already there.

he ment that you need a negative onto the engine block, the positive to the starter should be there too. normally the negative will come off the battery terminal and join to the body, then from there to the engine block.

there is already a big thick negative cable going to the starter motor where it bolts onto the bellhousing, off that cable there is a normal sized negative cable going to a bolt on the brake booster, could this be the trouble.

I'd say there's a problem with that cable.

You could try checking for voltage drops from the battery negative terminal to the engine block while the engine is cranking over. If there's more than a couple of hundred millivolts you've found your problem.

You can buy pre made earth leads from places like Supercheap for less than $20 including a new battery terminal and a lug to bolt on the engine at the other end.

Yep - the earth cable from battery to bell housing bolt isn't doing it's job. Possibly a dodgy crimp in one end creating a high resistance joint.

Try using a jumper cable from battery neg to engine block, and see if that fixes the problem.

Note that use of loctite on screws can occasionally act as an electrical insulator. If loctite was used on that bellhousing bolt that could be a problem too.

Good luck,

Scott

rightio, clean and check all negatives and see how we go, should i beef up the tiny wire going from batt to body?

It won't hurt. I'm planning on doing the same on my Feroza.

My mums laser was doing this a few years back.

It was the earth from the engine to the body of the car was corroded inside the insulation. I replaced the earth cable and the problem went away. To find the problem I just put a ohm meter from the engine to the body of the car. From memory it was over 1M ohm when it should be less the one ohm. I couldn't see any problems with the old cable until I cut the insulation off and found a heap of corrosion near both ends and also about 1/3 of the way along the cable.

ahh right, i will try that tomorrow, all earths are cleaned up now, and i got two accel cables, one just in case the other blows and i need to get home, seems ok now tho. fingers crossed

Why would ya put effort into an earth going to your engine/transmission?It's rubber mounted! Put a substantial earth strap from your earth on the battery to the body. This can even have a beneficial effect on your driving lights etc.

Pat Murray wrote:Why would ya put effort into an earth going to your engine/transmission?It's rubber mounted! Put a substantial earth strap from your earth on the battery to the body. This can even have a beneficial effect on your driving lights etc.

because is petrol and needs a voltage differential for spark plugs to spark so need block earthed .... normal convention is to earth everything in sight (maybe just ac tho so not sure why always hard earth on engine block) ... should have earth strap to chassis, this will help driving lights etc. I alway run separate earths to lights from existing earth point like body/chassis in case of bad connection between light and chassis eg paint/rust/2 pac/powder coat

pat, have a look at the earth lead going off your suzuki, its goes straigh to the starter motor bolt(so the starter motor will have both neg and pos so it can turn) and on that lead there is a connector going to the booster for the brakes which gives the earth to body...

lol.. didnt belive me bout the earth to the block eh