Did I pick it up fast enough? Dropped an open end wrench on the + and the - battery t

[BReyes]

Did I pick it up fast enough? Dropped an open end wrench on the + and the - battery terminal for 2 to 2.5 sec.

The car backfired when I cranked it. Should I have asked this question before starting it after dropping the wrench on the batterry like that?

Finished tightening the battery.

Tried to start it it backfired, I cleaned the distributor cap and rotor to like new condition, put distributor cap back on. Tried to start it again. It back fired.

Did I...

Thank you.

Regards,

[svandamme]

when the engine isn't running , a wrench on the + and - , electrically can only cause damage to the battery
since the short is the shortest (hence the name short) way the current can travel, it can't travel anywhere else...


2.5 secs is kinda long, but a fresh battery can probably take it, and older battery that allready degraded before that, probably won't...

the backfires... could be that the battery isn't delivering the juice, to run both starter and ignition

only one way to find out, measure the battery, and/or put in another one to test

[BReyes]

I'm off to switch batttttrryyssssssss.

[svandamme]

oh, 2 batteries... forgot that
but still the short to the second battery, i think would only run over the thick cable, nothing electronic or what not inbetween... at least not on my 73 there wasn't

[dtw]

Had the same situation but located at the alternator, not at the battery. Ignition off. Within 100 miles I had to replace the starter, CDI, and alternator. NO idea if they were related.

[svandamme]

probably , the short in the back isn't as short as + - on the battery
there's a lot of ways the current can flow depending on how you shorted things out in the back....

[BReyes]

The motor back fires instead of starting? What did I do. The 3.2 has been mostly sitting for last month. When i tried to start it the battery was dead so I jump started it, and later took it to be charged by local shop. When started it after jump starting there was a small mis and i drove it 25-30mph around the neighborhood for a while and let it idle.

There have been very heavy rains here.

What to do next?

Any ideas

[BReyes]

Dont know why.

So I unpluged the coil wire cranked it for a few seconds reconnected it and it cranked up with some petal work. Runs smooth.

Thanks again.

[foamy911]

I think it's doomed, I'll give you $100 for it , seriously though glad you did not damage anything.

[BReyes]

ignorance is bliss. I thought is was that I upset the mightybackfire gods by discounting someones backfire to a dirty distributor cap. I will respect the gods of backfire from this day forward as i respec the gods of detonation.


What a difference to drive the rag top (of course the top off) up and down through the gears yes that includes a fine heel tow into first and hairpin and up through again and of course once more back and forth through the hairpin (i.e. uturn in the suburbs )

Now where are those calipers that i pulled off the other car for rebuilding...
Regards,

[Nostril Cheese]

I think the most you would be looking at would be a dead cell in the battery. It wasnt there long enough and it is shorted across the shortest path.

[scottbooth]

Glad things seem to be working out.

It may be that a weak battery can cause a backfire on starting. A few years back, I spent a couple of days trying to get my SC to start after letting it sit over a winter with the battery in the car (not smart), then putting a charger on it for a night.

I had some tremendous backfires. Then I spent a lot of time dorking around with the CIS air-fuel mixture adjustment screw and just made things worse. Eventually I pulled the spark plugs and saw that they were all badly fouled. From cranking with the low battery or from my mixture f*ckery I don't know.

So I tossed the NGK's and put in a new set of cheap a$$ Autolites from the local Walmart, and that fixed it. (I only ran them for a year or two. They worked fine. Official spark plug of NASCAR and all.)

Backfilling with BS theory, I can imagine that the low battery may have caused a weak spark that messed up the plugs while failing to start the engine. But that is a guess as I was also screwing up other stuff at the time.

If you now have new batteries like you said, you should be OK in that dept. but I would check the plugs just in case.

Good luck
Scott

[rick-l]

I want to see a picture of the wrench

[BReyes]

[rick-l]

Bet that lit up the area

[scottbooth]

some people (me) pay good money for mig welders to melt metal like that.

[spuggy]

heh, I think you were pretty lucky. Get cover(s) for the +-ve terminals...

From the "(What) Was I Thinking" Archive:

A long time ago, I had a bike with some charging issues. Did some work, trickle-charged the battery all night, and wanted to check that it was fully-charged - even though the cells were gassing off pretty good.

Lacking a voltmeter or an hydrometer, I grabbed a screwdriver and went to arc it between both terminals. Did I mention I was young at the time?

I couldn't get a spark. I couldn't get a spark. I couldn't - @#@$#%$ !!! what was that...

There was a big fat blue-white spark (that ate the end of the screwdriver pretty good) and a sound like a 38 special, as the hydrogen ignited, blew out the side of the battery and sprayed acid for a good 3-4 feet in the immediate vicinity (from inside the battery box in the bike, d'oh!). Including all over my jeans, which later developed big holes. I guess it was fully-charged...

A motorcycle battery is tiny in comparison to a car one. I wouldn't recommend this as a testing method...

The electrics were fine after I bought and charged another battery, though..

[berettafan]

welding is fun but that is NOT the way to go about it.