Car completely flatlined and how I made it come back to life.
09-13-23, 07:24 PM
#1
1st Gear
Thread Starter
Car completely flatlined and how I made it come back to life.
Hi everyone! Just figured I'd put this here since I couldn't find any sources on this issue while fixing it, and figured maybe it would help someone else in the process of remedying someone else's handiwork (or your own on a bad day).
Picked up the car and the previous owner did a really patchwork head unit install, I'm talking loose melting electrical tape with ""splices"", and some Joying branded android box (came with the original radio, I have later plans once plates arrive). In the process of mounting it to a frame, the car would not respond. I'm not talking no crank, I'm talking not a single light.
Naturally, the thought came to a bad ground, an open/short circuit, or a dead battery that got its last gasp. A multimeter across the battery came up with 12.3V, a bit gassed but nothing that could cause this. Tracing the voltage drop outwards showed the commonly disintegrated battery links were just fine as well.
Replacing the MAIN 80A and ALT 120A fuses (link HERE for those who might be looking around for it, code's 9566-11 on PICO) in the engine bay box brought a gasp back, but the car would almost immediately flatline again shortly after inserting the key. Cleaning the battery terminals off with a brass brush (something that should also be done IMO) also helped, but still no dice.
In the end, what fixed it was disconnecting the negative terminal from the battery for about half an hour while resplicing all the connections and using heatshrink + solder to properly ensure the wires are maintaining a connection while the jostling of shoving the head unit in goes on. Also, before reconnecting the negative terminal make sure all plugs are reinserted to components in the dash.
Sorry if this is all useless for the lot of you here, just figured if anyone else encounters this these are the steps that saved my bacon. Next up are replacing the suspension parts that give me a bigger deadzone than a morgue
Picked up the car and the previous owner did a really patchwork head unit install, I'm talking loose melting electrical tape with ""splices"", and some Joying branded android box (came with the original radio, I have later plans once plates arrive). In the process of mounting it to a frame, the car would not respond. I'm not talking no crank, I'm talking not a single light.
Naturally, the thought came to a bad ground, an open/short circuit, or a dead battery that got its last gasp. A multimeter across the battery came up with 12.3V, a bit gassed but nothing that could cause this. Tracing the voltage drop outwards showed the commonly disintegrated battery links were just fine as well.
Replacing the MAIN 80A and ALT 120A fuses (link HERE for those who might be looking around for it, code's 9566-11 on PICO) in the engine bay box brought a gasp back, but the car would almost immediately flatline again shortly after inserting the key. Cleaning the battery terminals off with a brass brush (something that should also be done IMO) also helped, but still no dice.
In the end, what fixed it was disconnecting the negative terminal from the battery for about half an hour while resplicing all the connections and using heatshrink + solder to properly ensure the wires are maintaining a connection while the jostling of shoving the head unit in goes on. Also, before reconnecting the negative terminal make sure all plugs are reinserted to components in the dash.
Sorry if this is all useless for the lot of you here, just figured if anyone else encounters this these are the steps that saved my bacon. Next up are replacing the suspension parts that give me a bigger deadzone than a morgue
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