[Erik T.]

Ok, heres whats been going on.

Thursday I took off my Throttle Body Spacer because my AEM Brute Force intake was hitting the hood of my jeep after installing a MML a few months ago and wearing through the intake.

Pretty easy take out, I unhooked the negative, I pulled the Intake off, disconnected the 'electrical connections, removed the 4 long bolts, removed the spacer, put 4 new shorter bolts on reconnected everything. Really simply. Except I tried to start it when I forgot to rehook the negative battery back up.

It starts up fine, I head off to dinner. After dinner I try to jump this guys Lincoln, I wasn't paying attention to the fact that they had power because their headlights were on. So I hooked it up, revved the engine, they tried to turn theres - then I noticed that it wasn't there battery.

So I unhook, and leave.

After that it starts acting up. I'll turn the key and it'll start to rev then die, or it'll take longer to start then usual. If it died, it only took one more turn to get it to start.

Not having the spacer was really noticable, especially with my 3.07 gearing, so I put it back on this afternoon. Took me like 10 minutes to do. Exact opposite of before.

It starts up like a bell, I drive half a mile testing out the power and all that stuff. Then I park it for about 2 hours.

Just now I went outside to fire it up to go into town to run, and nothing. I got in, turned on the overhead light, turned off the overhead light, turned the key and nothing. I lost all power, I can't turn on the headlights, interior light, none of that. Only light I have in the entire jeep is the tiny little guage above the Passenger Air Bag on/off switch.

Funky huh?

I'm going to try to jump it in a few minutes.

But what do you think is going on?

Last year when I first bought my jeep I jumped a guys truck at a bar one night, for a week afterwards it started up sort of wierd then stopped. Like it took longer having the key turned for it to catch. But it went away.

This time it's obviously worse.

Any suggestions or anything.

I had been keeping an eye on my batter and it's at the same level as before at 14 on the gauge.


EDIT this is the link to the electrical connections I unhooked, but I made sure they were properly put back in both times when I did it.

http://4x4xplor.com/images/TB-spacer/DSC09576.jpg

[RnEmOvr]

ok i dont see why you needed to d/c any plugs to install a TBS i didnt need to, secondly is the battery good? are the connections tight and clean?

[Erik T.]

I didn't disconnect the others, I read the 4x4xplor.com writeup on installing a TBS so I figured it needed to be done.

But you're right, it probably didn't need to. I didn't disconnect the other attachments and was able to slip it out and back in easily.

My battery connections look ok, there is that white crap on either ends of the bolt on both the positive and negative. I scrapped a fair amount off when I was unhooking the negative with the wrench.

Theres a bunch of it actually sitting on top of the battery in small chunks because I didn't brush if off.(the stuff that came off from wrenching)

edit - the battery should be good. I have the same 14 (is it voltage? Is that the right word for it?) on the gauge as I had before it started acting up. I don't know how old the battery is, I'm pretty certain it is the original though as theres no obvious markings to the brand.

[Rule303]

Originally Posted by Erik T.

I didn't disconnect the others, I read the 4x4xplor.com writeup on installing a TBS so I figured it needed to be done.

But you're right, it probably didn't need to. I didn't disconnect the other attachments and was able to slip it out and back in easily.

My battery connections look ok, there is that white crap on either ends of the bolt on both the positive and negative. I scrapped a fair amount off when I was unhooking the negative with the wrench.

Theres a bunch of it actually sitting on top of the battery in small chunks because I didn't brush if off.(the stuff that came off from wrenching)

edit - the battery should be good. I have the same 14 (is it voltage? Is that the right word for it?) on the gauge as I had before it started acting up. I don't know how old the battery is, I'm pretty certain it is the original though as theres no obvious markings to the brand.

Positive to Positive, Negative to Negative when jumping. Just kidding.

I think the answer to your problem can be found in your reply above.

[Erik T.]

I don't have a wire brush up here, I think it's down at the job site.

Does coke really work to get that white crude off?

[RnEmOvr]

clean the corroseion(sp) the white crap, even a small amount can screw stuff up, but remember that acts with water and will eat your skin and clothes

[Erik T.]

Originally Posted by Sparky05

Positive to Positive, Negative to Negative when jumping. Just kidding.

I actually screwed that up once a few years ago, I was helping a cop jump start this girls car on my college campus and I put them on wrong. I got some pretty startling sparks when I brushed them up against the wrong ones hooking it up.

[RnEmOvr]

Originally Posted by Erik T.

I don't have a wire brush up here, I think it's down at the job site.

Does coke really work to get that white crude off?

yes it does

[Erik T.]

Appreciate it guys. I didn't have any coke, but luckily I did have the wire brush so I cleaned them up as much as I could without taking them off.

I jumped it, let it run for a bit, then killed it and started it a few times.

Seems to be starting up fine. I'll go out in an hour or so and try it again and tomorrow I'll pour some coke on it to get the crud in the little nicks.

Thanks guys.

[Rule303]

Spring for a few bucks and get a battery cleaning tool. I think maybe $4. Every person who owns a car should have one. You want that metal nice and shiny!

[Erik T.]

haha, I've never heard of one of those but I'll swing by Advance Auto in the morning and pick one up.

[RnEmOvr]

to get them good and clean you should remove the terminals

[Erik T.]

Well I went to go running, came back to the jeep - turned the key and got that 'ditditditditdit' noise.

Still had power and lights, although it began to fade and die the more I turned the key.

Towed it home, hopefully it's the battery and not the alternater. The alternater was still showing 14 on the gauge though. I'll get the battery tested in the morning, it's around 7 years old, could probably use a replacement.

[Grewe02]

Originally Posted by Erik T.

Well I went to go running, came back to the jeep - turned the key and got that 'ditditditditdit' noise.

Still had power and lights, although it began to fade and die the more I turned the key.

Towed it home, hopefully it's the battery and not the alternater. The alternater was still showing 14 on the gauge though. I'll get the battery tested in the morning, it's around 7 years old, could probably use a replacement.

Sounds like the battery to me. Grab yourself an Optima Red Top. Then you won't have to worry about the battery terminal cleaner

[RockRunner85]

Just now I went outside to fire it up to go into town to run, and nothing. I got in, turned on the overhead light, turned off the overhead light, turned the key and nothing. I lost all power, I can't turn on the headlights, interior light, none of that. Only light I have in the entire jeep is the tiny little guage above the Passenger Air Bag on/off switch.

If you are sure the battery is good....

Get yourself a multimeter. First check the battery voltage. Should read 12.6 give or take a few.

Set it on ohms and test the resistance between the ground terminal on the battery and the engine block. You should have 0 resistance. Check between the body and the battery. If it shows resistance on these your ground is bad. A bad ground will cause a voltage drop.

You can verify the bad ground by setting it to dc volts and touching the alternator positive and ground on the battery. It will read much lower than what you got when just testing the voltage on the battery directly.