Went to take Comet out today and battery was dead, found I had left interior light on and havent been in the car for about 2 weeks, Jumped car off and drove it around for about 20 minutes backed it into the garage turned it off and everything fine. Tryed to see if it would restart and it turned over slowly a few times so I let off the key switch and it continued to turn over then puff of smoke from edge of hood where Battery, Solenoid and Voltage Regulator are located, raised hood and Positive cable from battery to Solenoid very hot so removed it from Battery post. I am going to have battery checked tomorrow and buy new Solenoid and Cable. Think this will solve problem?
Likely a solenoid issue. 20 minutes was not long enough to charge the dead battery. If your going to have the battery tested it needs to be fully charged.
It should, unless the starter went bad, too. Mine did something like that, just didn't smoke any. Battery cable got hot. Turned out my starter had just about seized up. I mean I had just cranked it, it went dead, then nothing. If the starter is bad, go with the late model mini starter. Easier to put on, especially with headers, and more torque too.
could it have grounded out on something and when the cable hooked to the batt is not tight some times it will smoke a lil bit but i don't think it whould get hot hope this helps you?
With low battery voltage what happened is, the solinoid wouldnt fully engage creating a high current draw off the battery for the starter to turn.This caused the starter to overheat the solinoid and the cable.Alternators are not meant to charge dead batteries,they are meant to maintain a certain voltage/amperage level of a battery.When an alternator tries to "maintain" a dead battery, it spikes the voltage/amperage out put usually causing the voltage regulator to cook itself and often cooking the diodes/rectifier in the alt.Get those components tested as well as the battery after you give it a good deep cycle charge.Good luck
Well it sounds good to me too lol. I would change the battery and cable and then see what's up. Not saying the battery is bad, I just don't have time to spend charging it when i'm going to get a cable anyway. I also have warranty on my batteries...
Hey Earl, put a new battery, and Solenoid in today and all is great and ready to go to Gadsden Cruise Friday. 12 Volts on battery and over 14 with car running so looks like voltage regulator and Alternator survived. Thanks everyone for the advise and for giving me a better understanding of what was happening instead of just what to replace. :Handshake
Nope actually $4.19 for the cable, just forgot to mention it, but I could afford it because the battery was less than 3 years old and after prorating it, it was just $24.00 for the new battery so ended up fixing car for around $50 or so.
