Went to start it up after a week or so and nothing. No click. No lights. No horn. Last thing I did a week ago was use carb cleaner on it. Cleaned the carb and linkage. That involved a little rinse water on the linkage. The car still ran after that. Battery is new and I checked it and it gives out 12v. Remembering toybreaker had a thread recently on a similar problem I located the thread and followed stepman's advice as far as it would go.

From stepman's reply to toybreaker. My results in bold red.

Start by measuring batt voltage across the posts. You should have around 12volts here.

Yes, it is fine here.

If not...batt dead. If you do, leave the positive lead on the battery and ground the neg lead to the body of the car.(anywhere that is not the ground cable). If you don't get batt volts, check and repair the ground cable. If you still have 12v, leave the ground lead hooked up (or you can connect it back to the neg side of batt.) and probe the pos lead to the batt side of the solonoid. (check it on the post, not the cable). Do you still have 12v? If not, check and repair pos batt cable.

Yes, this is fine too. Checked the body ground and the pos side of the solonoid

 

If you're getting 12v with tight connections, it must be the solenoid, I would think? "Dead electrical system" means no juice at all, except at the solenoid's pos post right?

I don't know what you meant by "rinsing" after cleaning the carb linkage, but a solenoid can fry in seconds if wet and the key on start. Or maybe it just crapped out coincidentally this week, but it sounds like the solenoid.

CP

 

IMO, if EVERYTHING is dead, check all of the BIG wies really, really, close. check the cable ends for poor connections by grabbing ahold of the cable and giving it some firm fugs while twisiting it around some.

You are almost for sure to find an issue with the big wires, either hot or ground.

Remove the battery cable from the solenoid and check for corosion between it and your cabin feed wire.

And by the way, this is happening because your car is pissed, you haven't driven it in a week....

 

Try running a test lead from the battery + to the small "S" terminal on the solenoid, and get back to us.

 

My battery died on me a while ago and it still had full voltage... All my chargers at home would read full charged, it would spark if bridged, and it had voltage yet still wouldn't turn over my car or the 71. Kragan autoparts was stumped to say the least and didn't believe me so they put it in one of the workers' dodge dart and nothing happened just as I thought. What I think it was is a cell in between died so it would read charged, but no current could pass through the middle.

I'm not sure if this is what your problem is but its worth looking into.

 

Carlos
No water got on the solenoid. I just poured a little over the linkage to wash off the stuff the carb cleaner disolved.

JMD
The only big wire which is questionable is the ground from the battery. It really should be replaced. However, since I have 12 volts from the battery positive to the car body, the battery ground must be OK, right? The car sat because it was running badly, surging and "coughing" and such. While cleaning the carb I noticed the hose from the exhaust to the choke was missing and the metal connection from the choke to the exhaust was disconnected. Choke could not have been operating at all. So here I try to something nice for my car and she does this to me.

2+2GT
What is the small "S" terminal?

4reboy
I will check that. I can just hook up a battery out of another car and see if that makes any difference.

Everybody
I am betting on the solenoid. I took a good look at it. It looks ancient. It has a pretty good chip out of it and is just generally crappy looking although the connections are good and clean. I am not sure if I can pick one up at the auto parts store for this car so I ordered one tonight from NPD. I should have it by Wednesday. Next cruise in is Saturday so I have to get this baby running.

 

My thought is the solenoid as well. Hopefully that takes car of it.

 

what 2+2 meant was:
1. put the car in neutral or park
2. at the starter selonoid there's 4 connections. The small one in the middle on the left when looking straight at it is marked with 'S'
3. disconnect that cable from the starter selonoid
4. run a wire (a screwdriver will do the same) from battery+ connection of selonoid (far left) to this 'S' terminal. The engine should crank over
Don't try to start like that. just come back to us with the result: "it's cranking" or "it's not cranking"
and info if you have auto transmission or manual
Kalli

 

I don't think this is a solenoid issue. The power for your lights and horn and other things does not actually run thru the sol. On the same note as 4e...check the battery with the lights or key on, see if you have the same 12v's. Also, look at other wires coming off sol where battery cable is hooked to.

 

Check the harness connection at the firewall. When installing a new brake MC I disconnected the plug and never connected it. It had all of the above symptoms. Ya never know.