So the new battery accepted the charge but it took 9 hours at 2amps trickling in.  You have to unplug the type of charger I use in order to stop the charging.  It’s a $30 cheapy from Wal-Mart and it doesn’t really have an off switch.  It has the intelligence to stop charging once it’s detected the battery is full and then you pull the power cable on it.  This time it did something that I forgot about.  After you unplug the charger from the electrical socket it was still running with LED lights showing me that it was at full charge.  I’d seen this before when I charged a mower battery, but forgot that this was how you could tell that the battery charge had taken.

The charger did not act this way when I charged the old battery I removed from the van.  So clearly the old battery was dead.

I re-attached the clamps and thought I’d be back in business.  The battery gauge on the dash jumped to life and the radio turned on when I inserted the key.  Yes!

Alas, it still would not start.  And after the first time the radio wouldn’t come on and the battery gauge just laid there like a dead fish.  So it couldn’t be the starter.  And it was unlikely that a parasitic drain had pulled 9 hours of charging out in mere seconds.  Nope, it had to be a bad ground or bad cable somewhere.  It’s really the only thing that made any sense.  I’d noticed that the battery clamps that hook onto the battery terminals had a few loose bolts.  I don’t think they were loose originally but from all my taking them on and off to troubleshoot I think I worked them loose.  As I went to tighten them down a few flecks of white powdery corrosion sort of flaked out of the connector in an area that I had not scrubbed free of corrosion.  Aha!

And this time the bloody van leaped to life.  Restarted it 3 times and everything was grand.  Drove down to have dinner with a friend and his family in Raymore, stopped for ice on the way and the stinking van wouldn’t start the first time I tried.  But it started on the second try and it started back up 3 times when I tested it at his house.  It also started up after dinner and got me home.  Tomorrow I’ll pull that connector apart and chemically clean the connector, then scrub the bejeesus out of it.  Finally I’ll add some of that corrosion preventative stuff.  I generally don’t like it as it’s goopy and I’m not sure how well it works but after all this work I’m ready to try anything.  Especially since the car is running on a donut until my new tires come into Sams Club 5-10 business days from now.

The only other thing that I could possibly do is remove this terminal connector and replace them with the types that you just stick the copper wires into and smash with a hammer.  I’ll try the vigorous cleaning first.

I hope the story wasn’t too boring.  I know I didn’t provide pictures or anything.  I’m normally better about that stuff but I’m just getting back into the swing of writing again.  I hope y’all had a nice weekend!

Dan Doughty