[Bricklin] Tech. Question

[John T. Blair]

At 11:12 AM 5/9/2009, Efrain Nadal wrote:

 >I was working with my car in a simple task. The battery was dead so 
I take it
 >out and recharged, well I least i think so. When I installed back all the
 >electricals part go on, ebery looks good but when I try to start 
the engine is like
 >the battery no have suficient power to do that. But my concern is 
the smoke that
 >start to come out from the battery terminals. I thinks that 
probably I just need a
 >new battery but i want to know about others posibilities about the smoke.

Efrain,

It could be a bad battery.  You'll need to get a voltmeter to 
tell.  Connect the positive lead of the voltmeter to the positive 
battery terminal, and the negative
lead to the negative battery terminal.  The meter should read about 
12.5V.  Then
have someone try to crank the engine and watch the meter, and see what the
voltage is.  If it's below 9V then you probably have a bad battery.

But loose or dirty connections can cause the leads to smoke.  Because a
loose/dirty connector becomes a resistor.  When you try to start the car, the
starter requires a lot of current.  Which in turn causes any bad 
connection to get
very hot, and can cause the insulation to melt or catch fire.

So check the connections at the battery.  Are they clean and tight?  Also check
the ground connection, under the car.  You might want to undo the connection
and clean the chassis and connector with sandpaper, and then reconnect them.

With the negative lead REMOVED from the battery, you might also want to check
the positive connectors at the starter solenoid.

There is a ground strap in the engine bay that connects the chassis 
and engine to
ground.  You might want to check both ends of that also.

Hope this helps.

John
John T. Blair  WA4OHZ     email:  jblair1948 at cox.net
Va. Beach, Va
Phone:  (757) 495-8229

           48 TR1800    48 #4 Midget    65 Morgan 4/4 Series V (B1106)
      75 Bricklin SV1 (#0887)    77 Spitfire    71 Saab Sonett III
                        65 Rambler Classic

Morgan:    www.team.net/www/morgan
Bricklin:  www.bricklin.org

If you can read this             - Thank a teacher!
If you are reading it in English - Thank a Vet!!