86 911 won't crank; can't start the car

[remigio]

good afternoon. any help would be appreciated. pls see below;

car has been in storage for two years. i take it out of storage one month every year for a shake down (the last time was last december). i put it back in storage beginning of january. it was last started about five days ago. at that time, the battery was dead (i forgot to hook it up to the tender) so i used jumper cables. it started. i hooked up the battery to the tender at that time. today i noticed the tender indicator light is still red. i used to be able to start the car even when the indicator is red so i tried to start the car. it won't crank; just that "tick click." I tried jumping it with my truck's battery again -- no go -- so for now, i hooked it back up to the tender. with the jumpers, i could at least hear the starter activate a little.

do i have a bad battery, a starter problem, or both? it shouldn't the weather. the car is garaged and it has been pretty mild here --45-69 deg f.

thanks for any help or info you can give me.

Ray

[lsf911]

Ray,

It just sounds like a dead or very weak battery.

A tender will just maintain the level of charge that the battery has when connected to it. So, if the battery is low, the tender will maintain that low voltage. It will not charge it.

Replace the battery and you should be good to go or at least recharge your current battery to full capacity and see what happens.

[ischmitz]

I'd get a cheap new battery from the FLAP. The deep-cycle has probably killed yours to a point where it won't deliver enough power any longer. If you drive very infrequently maybe a marine-style battery.

Most modern tenders will charge a battery up to its float voltage and then maintain that level. It will take a long time (days) depending the tender used and the charge level. A 400mA tender will take about 100 hours to charge a battery with 40Ah. The capacity of ours are approximately 60 - 80 Ah. So do the math.....

But if the battery has too much sulfation due to age and deep-cycling it can have an internal short in one cell or not hold much charge. Then its internal resistance goes up. With the tender is quickly rises to 14.4V. Once a load (starter) is connected it drops right back to less than 10V.

[DRACO A5OG]

+1 Dead Battery.

What does your battery read after charging it?

If I may suggest, once battery is replaced. hand crank the engine to circulate the sitting oil because those cylinders will be dry and dry cold starts will wear out your engine.

Or let it crank couple of times before starting it to get those piston wet for the sustained idle that I assume you do once a year.

Just my 2 cents.

Jim

[Quicksilver]

The connection from the clamps of a jumper cable won't carry enough current to actually crank an engine over with the starter. A "jump" is just a boost.

Repeating the comments above...
Borrow a real battery charger or bite the bullet and replace the battery.

[wwest]

Originally Posted by remigio

good afternoon. any help would be appreciated. pls see below;

car has been in storage for two years. i take it out of storage one month every year for a shake down (the last time was last december). i put it back in storage beginning of january. it was last started about five days ago. at that time, the battery was dead (i forgot to hook it up to the tender) so i used jumper cables. it started. i hooked up the battery to the tender at that time. today i noticed the tender indicator light is still red. i used to be able to start the car even when the indicator is red so i tried to start the car. it won't crank; just that "tick click." I tried jumping it with my truck's battery again -- no go -- so for now, i hooked it back up to the tender. with the jumpers, i could at least hear the starter activate a little.

do i have a bad battery, a starter problem, or both? it shouldn't the weather. the car is garaged and it has been pretty mild here --45-69 deg f.

thanks for any help or info you can give me.
Ray

I take it that after the car started you didn't run it long enough to bring up the battery SOC enough that it could be sustained with a trickle charger.

SOP...

The trickle charger might bring it up to good SOC.... in a month or so...

[patz]

get a real charger, it may come back. You'll need it the future anyways.

[stlrj]

Ray,

I would have called AAA and have it running an hour later. So complicated just because it's a Porsche?


Cheers,

Joe

[cabmandone]

+ wherever I am in line for a dead battery. I had a incident where my wife's car wouldn't start and just the day before it started fine. The battery was shot, wouldn't take a charge. It happened just that quickly.

[remigio]

thanx to all for the help/recs in solving this prob.