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ok last week car ran great. then on the way home from the allinment shop the car started to spit and sputter and the interior lights went dim, and the car died as i shifted. I had my friend come out to give me a jump and the postitive battery cable had come off. so we put it back on and let the car charge for a couple min. i drove it home no problem. when i got home i through the slow charger on it. left it on the car for about an hour because the battery was dead. when i started the car the battery charger said the battery was not getting any charge back from the alternator. so i checked all my fuses and grounds all good. so i took the alternator out and had it checked at my local autozone and advanced auto parts store. had them check it for like a couple min turning it off and on. and it tested good. so took it back to the house. put it back on the car. and charged the battery full. and by the way my car is a 2000 neon with a srt swap. i bought the car form another member on here. but anyways the battery is relocated to the trunk. so i looked at the ground from the battery its grounded to the body of the car. and the positive goes to the fuse box in the engine bay. im stuped. i have no idea why the car is not chargeing. i was told that i need to run another neg battery cable from the battery to the engine block to make a complete circit. but can some one please help i need this car to run by tomarow so i can get to work.

smokennicky wrote:and the postitive battery cable had come off.

Check the wire from the alternator to the starter. There should be a fusible link in that wire. It prolly burn't out when the positive clamp fell off. It may have shorted and blew the link. You could put a butt connector in place of it temporarily to get your car going. Then just get a replacement link as soon as possible. Or a new wire assy. The fusible link is near the starter. Prolly going to be a bit of a PITA to access with the IM in place.

Unless it is easier to get at on an SRT set up.

thanks ill check that out and let you know.

Is that battery old? Did you replace it? Sounds like a dead battery...

had the battery checked when i took the alt off.

ok looked at the link. seems fine.

Did you pull on it? Check it with a meter? The physical appearance generally doesn't look any different when they fail. But if they burn, you can usually yank it apart, because the insulation is the only thing holding it together.

Are the battery posts corroded? It just seems strange that it sounds like a dead battery and you said it won't hold a charge either.

yea the post are realy good its a brand new post as well as wireing. and i did pull on it ill try the volt meter on it. what should it read on that wire exactly or around there.

You would need to check for battery voltage at the alternator end. Obviously you have power at the starter end, or it would not crank. You could probe the insulation on both sides of the link to check for a voltage drop, but just be careful not to damage the insulation.

ok. so i found out what the potential problem was looked over some threads on hear and googled some stuff and seems that the neg battery cable is not connected to the engine in any way so what we did was connected a jumper cable from the neg battery to one of the trans bolts and its holding a charge and putting pos charge back to the battery know. so we went out to autozone and picked up 18 ft of copper battery cable and were going to wire that up tomarow when its light out and a couple deg warmer. and ill let ya guys know what happens.

You should be able to just run a ground strap from the bell housing to the body and be fine. The body is your negative cable. It was working fine until the positive cable fell off, so running a dedicated ground to the battery won't hurt, but it prolly won't solve the original issue. You likely lost a ground connection somewhere, possibly the one from the head to the strut tower. That is basically the same as an engine block to ground. Not the best, but it would still charge the battery. You had a good enough ground for the starter to work, and it draws more amps than the alternator makes.

hmmm idk ill try that and let you guys know...

Check the ground connection in the trunk too. If it goes through the floor, possibly there is salt corrosion messing up the contact.

ok. and yea i checked that one it goes to the side of the body with a bolt.

ok so checked the fuisble link. and its good its getting power on both sides. havent checked the power going out of the starter yet i think im going to check that next. i also ran a 2 gauge wire from the neg on the battery to the engine and checked the ground from the head to the strut tower still good. so at this point im dumbfounded. help would be greatly appricated. thinking about a part out if cannot figure out.

smokennicky wrote:ok ~so what we did was connected a jumper cable from the neg battery to one of the trans bolts and its holding a charge and putting pos charge back to the battery know. so we went out to autozone and picked up 18 ft of copper battery cable and were going to wire that up tomarow when its light out and a couple deg warmer. and ill let ya guys know what happens.

I thought you had the charging problem "fixed".

If it is still not charging, the voltage regulator in your PCM might have gotten fried when the Pos. clamp came off the battery.

If you have voltage on both sides of the fusible link, you have voltage past the starter connection to the alternator post. Or at least there should be voltage to ground at the alternator post.

Ok. So i know that i had power to the starter. So i checked the wiring coming from the starter to the fusebox. And there was nothing. So i assumed it was the solinoid on the starter. So i just ran the fuseable link straight to the fusebox were the main pos cable is for the battery. And watcha know it ive got chargeing know. But for some odd reason when i got in the car to test it my gas gauge doesnt work know. Lol cars full of problems. It read 22 codes yesterday.