Car Won't Start

[CycloWizard]

1990 Acura Integra LS, 200k+ miles

Well, it's been more than two months since the last time I had a problem getting her started, so here I am. Last time, I replaced the main relay that controls the fuel pump and that seemed to fix the problem with not being able to start in hot weather. Maybe that's related, but probably not.

Brief timeline:
Friday: Started slower and slower with each start, sort of like the battery was dying (which it isn't).
Saturday: Started very slowly but ran fine. Got something to eat, came back out about five minutes later to start it back up again. When I turned the key, everything seemed to be working normally, automatic seatbelts started up, radio, everything. Then, about half a second later, all power cut out, seatbelts stopped about half way up, brake lights wouldn't work, nothing. Turned the key a couple times, still nothing - absolutely no power. I jiggled the batter connections a little (since corrosion there has been a problem in the past), and it fired up very quickly - much better than it had been doing recently, so I thought the problem was solved. All radio stations were lost, which tells me that power from the battery was completely gone temporarily.
Sunday: Fired up with no problems, drove for about 10 minutes, parked for 45 minutes or so. Came back to the car and it was raining very hard (probably unrelated, but...), started without a problem and made it home. About an hour later (raining pretty good this whole time), tried to start it up and no power at all. Jiggling the cables this time did nothing for me.
Monday: Tried again, still no go.

The battery appears to be connected well. I put a new connector on the negative terminal probably two or three years ago. My guess is that one of the leads from the battery is bad, but I haven't had time to actually look at them yet and I can't get to the lab where my multimeter is sitting to test it out.

Anyway, does anyone have any ideas? How tough/expensive is it to replace a battery lead, or is it something else? I've done just about everything else to this car, so I'm pretty confident that I can handle this, but I just want to be sure that this is the problem before I throw my very limited money into buying parts again. Thanks! :beer:

 

[AMCRambler]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
1990 Acura Integra LS, 200k+ miles

Well, it's been more than two months since the last time I had a problem getting her started, so here I am. Last time, I replaced the main relay that controls the fuel pump and that seemed to fix the problem with not being able to start in hot weather. Maybe that's related, but probably not.

Brief timeline:
Friday: Started slower and slower with each start, sort of like the battery was dying (which it isn't).
Saturday: Started very slowly but ran fine. Got something to eat, came back out about five minutes later to start it back up again. When I turned the key, everything seemed to be working normally, automatic seatbelts started up, radio, everything. Then, about half a second later, all power cut out, seatbelts stopped about half way up, brake lights wouldn't work, nothing. Turned the key a couple times, still nothing - absolutely no power. I jiggled the batter connections a little (since corrosion there has been a problem in the past), and it fired up very quickly - much better than it had been doing recently, so I thought the problem was solved. All radio stations were lost, which tells me that power from the battery was completely gone temporarily.
Sunday: Fired up with no problems, drove for about 10 minutes, parked for 45 minutes or so. Came back to the car and it was raining very hard (probably unrelated, but...), started without a problem and made it home. About an hour later (raining pretty good this whole time), tried to start it up and no power at all. Jiggling the cables this time did nothing for me.
Monday: Tried again, still no go.

The battery appears to be connected well. I put a new connector on the negative terminal probably two or three years ago. My guess is that one of the leads from the battery is bad, but I haven't had time to actually look at them yet and I can't get to the lab where my multimeter is sitting to test it out.

Anyway, does anyone have any ideas? How tough/expensive is it to replace a battery lead, or is it something else? I've done just about everything else to this car, so I'm pretty confident that I can handle this, but I just want to be sure that this is the problem before I throw my very limited money into buying parts again. Thanks! :beer:

The fact that you wiggled the connector and it started cranking again would definitely point to your battery wiring. Unless the car has some special kind of harness(my Ford Contour goes through some weird terminal block), battery cables are pretty easy and cheap to replace. I know Autozone has an aisle with different length cables ready to go.
My guess is it's just loose connections + corrosion. I would use a wire brush to clean the battery terminals and the end on the battery cables. Also see if you can track down the other ends of both your positive and negative battery wires. Your negative wire should bolt to the chassis somewhere for the ground and the positive will lead abck to your alternator and/or starter. Check those ends for corrosion and make sure the terminals are tight as well.
Another good thing to check are your fuses. If the connections were indeed loose you might have finally popped a fuse. I'm thinking the underhood fuse panel will contain the important ones. If you've got a Haynes manual you can figure out the crucial ones like fuel delivery, main fuse, etc.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
The fact that you wiggled the connector and it started cranking again would definitely point to your battery wiring. Unless the car has some special kind of harness(my Ford Contour goes through some weird terminal block), battery cables are pretty easy and cheap to replace. I know Autozone has an aisle with different length cables ready to go.
My guess is it's just loose connections + corrosion. I would use a wire brush to clean the battery terminals and the end on the battery cables. Also see if you can track down the other ends of both your positive and negative battery wires. Your negative wire should bolt to the chassis somewhere for the ground and the positive will lead abck to your alternator and/or starter. Check those ends for corrosion and make sure the terminals are tight as well.
Another good thing to check are your fuses. If the connections were indeed loose you might have finally popped a fuse. I'm thinking the underhood fuse panel will contain the important ones. If you've got a Haynes manual you can figure out the crucial ones like fuel delivery, main fuse, etc.

Thanks. That was sort of my thought process as well. I just wanted to make sure I was on the right track... Usually it's one component going wrong rather than just nothing happening, but with this car it's always something new.

 

[AMCRambler]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
The fact that you wiggled the connector and it started cranking again would definitely point to your battery wiring. Unless the car has some special kind of harness(my Ford Contour goes through some weird terminal block), battery cables are pretty easy and cheap to replace. I know Autozone has an aisle with different length cables ready to go.
My guess is it's just loose connections + corrosion. I would use a wire brush to clean the battery terminals and the end on the battery cables. Also see if you can track down the other ends of both your positive and negative battery wires. Your negative wire should bolt to the chassis somewhere for the ground and the positive will lead abck to your alternator and/or starter. Check those ends for corrosion and make sure the terminals are tight as well.
Another good thing to check are your fuses. If the connections were indeed loose you might have finally popped a fuse. I'm thinking the underhood fuse panel will contain the important ones. If you've got a Haynes manual you can figure out the crucial ones like fuel delivery, main fuse, etc.

Thanks. That was sort of my thought process as well. I just wanted to make sure I was on the right track... Usually it's one component going wrong rather than just nothing happening, but with this car it's always something new.

Yeah, it's pretty much gotta be electrical. My money is on the battery cables since everything electrical in the car isn't working.
I know there's also something called a mega fuse or something similar that's fused in with the main wiring on newer cars but I've never had to replace one before. One of those popping might cause similar symptoms as well. And I don't think the mega fuse is located in your under hood fuse panel. I think it has it's own separate housing. So you may need to research where to find that if it's not the battery cables.

EDIT: Did some poking around, it looks like the main power fuse is located under the dash according to Autozone.com. Not sure if this is the equivalent of the mega fuse or not.

 

[natto fire]

Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Yeah, it's pretty much gotta be electrical. My money is on the battery cables since everything electrical in the car isn't working.
I know there's also something called a mega fuse or something similar that's fused in with the main wiring on newer cars but I've never had to replace one before. One of those popping might cause similar symptoms as well. And I don't think the mega fuse is located in your under hood fuse panel. I think it has it's own separate housing. So you may need to research where to find that if it's not the battery cables.

EDIT: Did some poking around, it looks like the main power fuse is located under the dash according to Autozone.com. Not sure if this is the equivalent of the mega fuse or not.

The starter is not fused on those cars, and there is an underhood main fuse, well for all practical purposes anyways.

Is there corrosion on the battery cables themselves or just at the terminals? The ground is usually easy to tell if there is excessive corrosion and does not have a rubber boot around it to hide and promote corrosion, it is usually the positive that has the problem. The positive cable splits off right from the terminal and goes to the under hood power distribution block and directly to the starter. Check for corrosion not just where it clamps to the battery terminal, but on the actual crimped part of the wire too, pull back the red protective rubber and make sure it is not corroded too bad there.

I had this happen on my '91 Integra and it was not pretty. I remember the OEM replacement cable being pretty expensive, so I just bought the cheapest battery cable they had and rigged it up to work. I believe the starter uses 10 gauge wire, but it might be 8.

Also, how old is the battery? While this is much less likely to be the problem, especially with the first symptom being temporarily fixed by jiggling the connectors, it could still have a bad cell that intermittently stopped working which would have dropped output by 2.1v.

 

[CycloWizard]

I checked all of the fuses, none were blown. I disconnected all of the wires going to and from the battery, cleaned them up, still nothing. So I decided that either I'm on crack or it was the battery itself. I called someone to stop by and try to jump it and I was able to get some juice back, but not enough to start the car. I'll get a new battery tomorrow and try again. The battery I have is still under warranty for about a year, but I have used it pretty heavily jumping lots of other cars, but I'm still not really sure why it would die like this unless something is wrong with my alternator. :\

 

[BUTCH1]

If a battery is really flat a jump sometimes can't get it done, it must be charged.
makes life a lot easier on the ALT as well as a totally dead batt. is close to a short
and will work the piss out of the alt. I put a thin coating of vasoline on the terminals
after hooking up a new batt., this seems to help the corrosion issue..

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: BUTCH1
If a battery is really flat a jump sometimes can't get it done, it must be charged.
makes life a lot easier on the ALT as well as a totally dead batt. is close to a short
and will work the piss out of the alt. I put a thin coating of vasoline on the terminals
after hooking up a new batt., this seems to help the corrosion issue..

I tried charging it from my GF's battery for about 10 minutes last night and saw that my car got power when the jumper cables were attached, so that told me that it had to be the battery and not something further up the line. It wouldn't start after this brief charging, so I pulled it and went to WalMart to trade it in since I was pretty sure it was dead. WalMart's auto section was closed, so this morning took it to AutoZone. It was warrantied for 60 months and I've only had it for about 48, but I bought it from a place back east that doesn't exist in Missouri, so the warranty didn't help. They charged it for about an hour, load tested it and it failed pretty miserably as I expected. So, of course, I bought a new battery and put it in and it started waaaaay faster than I'm used to it starting. This tells me that my old battery was probably gradually dying and it was just so gradual that I missed the warning signs because I'm used to my car being old and cranky.

 

[BUTCH1]

Glad to hear you got her running at minimal cost, usually when a batt. goes on me it's
without warning. (FL heat). keep your receipt, I once bought a Die Hard that lasted 3 weeks
luckily I had the receipt so Sears did a full refund..