I'm sitting here at work because my car wouldn't start. I checked the battery with a multimeter (actually a coworker with an electrical engineering degree checked it haha) and he said the battery seemed to be in good shape. The battery isn't even a month old. I wouldn't even get a click from the starter, so I'm assuming the not starting thing means a stuck solenoid.

Weird thing is, that just within a few seconds, my battery terminal cable gets incredibly hot....like 110 degrees. I noticed a scorch mark on the battery box cover, and the glue at the end of the red terminal cable is black.

My question is, could my starter problem be the cause of the added resistance in my electrical line?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

A bad battery cable will do that. A loose terminal will cause high resistance, which will cause arcing and major heat generation.

A shorted starter will cause the cables, terminals, and the starter to get very hot (may cause fire). A shorted starter will draw too much current, and be weak, but cause the cables to get very hot.

An open starter will also be weak, (or dead) but it will draw no current.

The click you hear is the starter solenoid, not the starter body.

Make sure the engine is not locked up. Push start, or hand crank the car if possible to rule this out.

If the cable is hot, chances are the battery is fine (Charged).

Double check and clean all terminals, and retest.

 

Will do...my roommate is bringing me my tools and a terminal cleaning kit. Could the starter solenoid being stuck be pulling enough current to get the cable that hot? I've heard you can give it a thwack with a hammer to try and 'unstick it' as a temporary fix. Just trying to get home without having to get a tow...

 

Yes, a *light tap* - a hard whack will damage the starter. Strike it with the wooden handle end. Like your knocking on a door while the starter is being engaged.

 

I kinda forgot to tighten my alternator cable when I replaced it on my '95 Tercel and it got finger burning hot, so yeah, it could cause the cable to heat up.

 

Great News! I figured out that I had a loose cable. Horrible news! When attempting to unfasten the nut to clean the terminal, I snapped this bolt....someone please tell me that I'm not going to have to replace the entire cable...

 

You can carefully drill that bolt out and then use a standard bolt threaded through the hole to replace the one that is broken.

if you have to drill the hole slightly larger than the original stud, you can use the technique just have to hold the bolt with a nut.

Motor on!

 

FYI 110F is not HOT, hell I guarantee mine is atleast 100F right now since it's that hot outside.

 

You can go to any hardware store and find a bolt that size to fit.

 

Problem is, I haven't figured out how to get the existing bolt fragment out. It doesn't have a head on the other side

 

Has anyone ever replaced the terminal clamp before?

 

OK....So I figured out the problem. The nonce who put the battery in crossthreaded the nut, so when I tried to get it off it snapped. Leaving me with no bolt to hook the terminal on. So I had to get a bit creative....

To get home from the office for a more permanent solution, I looked through my desk at my office and found a binder clip.....

Once I got home, I used a punch to remove the broken bolt, and realized I didn't have anything remotely close to that size bolt in my toolbench....so I took the closest I had, and made some washers out of pennies.


I would like to thank MacGuyver for the inspiration for these 'fixes.' And they said watching too much TV would be bad for me.