new battery dead

superlooper · June 5, 2002

ok so I ve been workin on my friends 89 Suburban and just replaced the starter (been working fine) so we had some problems with the battery connection so we ended up getting a new battery and just hooking it up on the sides in stead of the top (wasnt enough slack for the wires to stay tight) ...so her truck wouldnt start a couple days ago.. ahhh .. i go over there get under the check the starter.. the bendex was jammed (or had stopped) in the flywheel. i jimmied it back out... open up the hood and not only is the battery flat dead but her intake hose is laying on the engine...half melted... burned rubber marks on the heat shield for the exhaust (by the plug wires)... sooo... we took the batt back to Auto Zone (retardzone) and it had a wopping total of 1.86 in it!! weird!! so they charged it up and it tested good .. put it back in and everything started up great! my question is did the intake hose (that was loose to begin with ) fall off and cause a spark or something and drained the juice out of the batt? what could cause that?? is there something else i should be checking??? im clueless ...

Thanks, Amy www.picturetrail.com/superlooper

TomEllis · June 5, 2002

Amy,

If the intake hose is melted, I take it that the hose is plastic?

It sounds like the Bendix of the starter locked on the flywheel keeping the starter engaged, draining the battery. Recheck the mounting bolts of the starter and the alignment of the starter to the flywheel.

If this is not the case, is there any metal near the battery connections that could get to the Positive terminal?

Those are the only things that I can think of that would cause what you described.

Good luck,

Tom Ellis

CMNTMXR81 · June 7, 2002

What Tom said. The intake tubing is plastic, isn't it? If so, plastic crossing the positive and negative terminals of the battery wouldn't do anything as it is not conductive.

rrsob · June 7, 2002

I tend to agree with the starter alignment. I had an '89 and put in a starter. Although I did'nt use them, the parts guy gave me some shims that some trucks need to keep the starter from getting to close to the flywheel. You may want to check into this. Rich S