i think id pull out the lawnchair and start telling the kid what to do so he can get a grip on reality

 

Park it close to window of house sit inside in lazyboy yell instructions out window...

 

^X2

 

Trying to wrap my head around this. ( it's 5 am )

1) Put in good battery.
2) DO NOT hook up negative cable to battery.
3) Hook up positive cable to battery.
4) Connect a 12V Test Lamp between neg battery terminal on battery and to the negative cable in Jeep.

Lamp will only illuminate if there is a short on the positive side to ground completing the circuit. Right? ( makes sense to me so far )

Then pull one fuse at a time until the Test Lamp extinguishes and when it does that fuse is in the shorted circuit.

RIGHT?

Here some questions in my head .......

Why didn't fuse blow as a result of the short to begin with?

This has to be a pretty heavy short on the positive cable somewhere ( maybe unfused segment ) to cause the battery terminal to blow out like it did..... no?

 

I am going to recheck this when the sun comes up, but my initial feelings are that the battery is toast.

 

The test light method will test all circuts the pos being melted does show heavy load issue maybe start with alt wire . As for charging battery the way its melted I would just call it dead and start fresh...

 

As for un fused segments not sure there is any. We do have fuseable links at starter relay.

 

Thanks - I am just thinking about the positive cable run from the battery down to the starter and anywhere else it goes before it sees a fuse.

A visual inspection should show it rather quickly.

 

NOTE: This may have be his intermittent problem finally becoming not intermittent.

In the past he has experienced momentary loss of all electrical after hitting a bump. If engine RPM's were high enough it would hiccup and keep running. At slow speeds it would die and need to be restarted with key. This sort of tells me something is moving and shorting....and now it is flat out shorted.

 

This issue arriving after hitting bumps to me says plates in battery are loose and touch causing internal short which will wreak havoc on electrical systems if it continues to happen. Can and will fry ecm alt and many other circuit in vehicles.

 

Just woke up and will take a look at the jeep in a bit.

If the battery was compromised internally would it have blow out the positive terminal like that?

I've seen internally shorted batteries and they tend to show case problems ... swelling/cracked.

Battery is out of the vehicle and with a digital meter it is showing

12.45 Volts off charger
13.50 on charger


I am concerned about my initial testing with the ohmmeter between the positive battery cable and vehicle ground ... it's showing damn near a dead short!


Battery is on it's way to be tested properly soon!

 

$70 for a new, good battery is expensive. However, I'd rather pay that than having to replace a bunch of other stuff/Chase electrical issues. Also I'd do my battery cables, especially the positives, just to totally eliminate anything there. I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to that and I'd rather replace for peace of mind. I've seen what the good enough attitude and bad battery cable cab do first hand and that ended in the loss of my buddys custom $60k f-450.

 

I don't know if it was mentioned, but at the time, was the battery secured with the hold down?

 

Yes it was very well secured.

As to the battery - just got a call and it tested as being good but in need of a charge.

( still I think I might change it out )

 

I am with you ... not trying to 'cheap out' but I want to make sure that the problem ( the short ) is located and repaired in such a way that it won't return anytime soon.