This morning I woke up and my car wouldn't start, the battery was dead. It's a brand new battery and there are tons of possibilities for why it went dead and the sad part is that the only way to know the cause if the battery checks out to be good is to have my car die again of a dead batter. It is possible that because I drive at night often with my heater, radio, electric fan, and headlights on and during the morning with my heater, radio, and sometimes electric fan that my batter simply hasn't had enough time to fully charge because on my route to school I unfortunetely have a lot of idling and it's a short trip. It is also possible that in the console I made their are three switches with built-in LED's and one ignition switch indicator light that because I didn't drive my car the lights drained it. Then again it could be that I have an open circuit somewhere, or my battery is crap(which would suck because it's an Optima and I don't like having to go in for returns). My Dad is telling me that I have to put in a battery kill switch, which I plan on doing, but winter isn't the best time to do a quality instellation, and I may not even need to because I made my lighted swtiches unlighted. I should look on the bright side, at least it isn't mechanical so everytime my car won't start all I'll need is a jump. Yeah for the fun trial and error problems

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My car may be slow to sixty, but at least it's been reliably slow to sixty for more than thirty years.

Maybe you just left the lights on...

Though I've done that before this was not one of those times. Probably a good way to get my electrical working better is to clean my grounds, though I'll know if my battery is no good tommorow by whether or not it starts.

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My car may be slow to sixty, but at least it's been reliably slow to sixty for more than thirty years.

Redtop optimas are a bit more sensitive to deep discharges then a typical wet cell. Deep enough of a discharge and you do comprimise its capacity, even if it is only once. Yellow or blue top, no problem.

My batter is an optima rapid start that I got on a blemish deal for $50, normally around 110+, and full warranty. Either way, it wasn't the battery, so therefore it's the wiring. This weeken I plan on pulling out unnecessary wiring, at one time I installed an alarm system then I figured out that all they're good for is making useless noise so I took it out and installed an ignition switch instead, yet I still have a lot of that alarm's wiring cluttering everything up, and that's very possibly where the open circuit is because at one time I violently took my alarm out when it suddenly went off while driving, and of course it was on a date....grrr. Bad way to instill confidence in your car, have alarms going off, no door handles, and a nasty draft from the weatherstripping you plan to instal when the weather's good.... God I wish I wasn't driving my restoration project every day.

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My car may be slow to sixty, but at least it's been reliably slow to sixty for more than thirty years.

[quoteGod I wish I wasn't driving my restoration project every day.[/quote]


Tell me about it. i wish i could park it and do a ground up on it.

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Maybe someday, just waiting for my unconfirmed uncle Donald Trump to pass away

well, I took out my car alarm wiring and everything is bright, much better. That may also be because of moving around some grounds too.

As for driving our restoration project, the one thing it does do really well is teach us what we can handle, how many people take their car apart as much as they can while driving it? I personally don't know very many people that have taken their front fenders off(making it illegal to drive at night), just so that they can get rid of rust on the back...

Oddly, when I finally get a garage I'll probably miss those experiences.

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My car may be slow to sixty, but at least it's been reliably slow to sixty for more than thirty years.

my bet would be the gorunds were the root cause

car trailer ar famous for this flash the right light when the left light is the one you want

most of the time common electrical gremlims can be traced to bad grounding


bp

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pekingese parker all bark no bite and piddles on the carpet..... bad puppy