My 1988 Jeep Cherokee has been sitting around for 2 years since it's last start. Today I give my son the green light to work on it for his first car, when we went to start it when needed to hook up the battery to a battery charger and it turned over. But once we shut the battery charger off the Cherokee shorted and shut off. We decided to unplug the alternator, but that wasn't the problem. Any input on what is shortening my Cherokee is helpful.

 

Try a new battery first.

There are several factors that could lead to this. It's very difficult to diagnose it without knowing more.

 

We have put in a new battery and it still seems to short itself out. We are currently unpluging anything that can be the problem and working on process of elimination. Thank you for the input.