When I turn the key on my 03 wrangler, 6 cylinder manual transmission, nothing happens. No clicking and the battery is fine as evidenced by the radio coming on. When i turn the key to "off" the gauges start to twitch and act wildly. No evidence of a developing problem, it has been running great recently.
Pull off the battery cables from the terminals, take a bit of sandpaper, and run the **** over the terminals. Then, mix a 25/75 Arm&Hammer/Water mixture, take a rag, and run that on one terminal, then the other, try not to drip water. Take sandpaper again, and run it over the terminals again, until they are fully shiny. Now, do the same things on the inside of the battery connectors. Make sure they clamp down well. That should do it. If not, make sure all the wires are good and solidly connected. Finally, get a voltmeter, and test between the block and the positive connector/terminal. Should read ~12.4-6V. (12.4 = bit low, but I figured if it's trying to go through a corroded connector or a short, it will be a bit low)
This one may be a little bit less accomodating, but if you know where to get to your silinoid's positive terminal, you can do it. Put the Jeep in neutral, turn the key to "off", and take a wire from the positive terminal of the battery to the positive terminal of the starter silinoid. This should make the starter spin up. If it doesn't, either the motor or the silinoid is dead, seeing as they're intigrated now, it won't make much difference. If it does spin up ... I'd have the mechanic come on down to check the neutral/clutch in sensors, and then an OBDII check.
×
197 views
Usually answered in minutes!
Terminals were pretty clean, but I cleaned them anyway. The voltmeter gave me 12.64V Same result. I appreciate you taken the time out of your day to help. Any more thoughts?
SOLVED: Thanks for your help. Turns out the battery had some dead cells. Although the voltage readout was great (12.64 V) and the radio, etc. would turn on, the bat. could not supply the necessary amps. Found this out when I tried to give it a full charge after all day of cranking on it. Thanks for everyones help.
×