goofy thing that happened over the weekend

[joyrider]

As I was zipping around Friday nite i started having all sorts of troubles with my SC2. The headlights and dash lights were flickering, the brakes were going to the floor, and i was about ready to drive the car into the river.
I parked and went into the store and when i came out the car was dead. Just replaced the alternator and i know the battery is ok, so what the hell?
Up goes the hood and i check out the battery. To my surprise the metal battery hold-down had come off and was connecting the positive terminal and the master cylinder! After carefully removing it i threw it in the trunk and got a jumpstart.
All better.
Lesson--make sure everything under your hood is bolted down tight.

[sierrap615]

Originally Posted by joyrider

To my surprise the metal battery hold-down had come off and was connecting the positive terminal and the master cylinder! After carefully removing it i threw it in the trunk and got a jumpstart.

OUCH!!! hope you didn't fry any of the electionics, you are lucky the battery didn't WELD itself to the cylinder. thats why it should have that little red plastic cover on it. what did you throw in the trunk? hope it wasn't the battery and you were driving around on just the alternator

[joyrider]

duh, little red plastic cover? mine doesn't!
i threw the big metal hold-down in the trunk because i couldn't locate the nuts in the dark to bolt the thing back down
come to think of it, it is still in the trunk--as long as i don't jump any railroad tracks it should be ok for now
i know people relocate their battery in the trunk to adjust weight for a rwd--never saw anyone just throw it in the trunk!
p.s. sorry to think u were tossing back a few but hey nothing wrong w/ that anyway! plus i noticed one of those posts were at 3 am, so naturally i figured ... no offense i hope!

[sierrap615]

um ok, this guy has his battery in BACKWARDS! but i think you get the idea.

http://www.saturnfans.com/photos/sho...php?photo=1859

if you had the cables replace anywhere other then the dealer then i bet the cover got thrown out, or it could have been ripped off.

[joyrider]

ohhh...ok.
probably just fell off or was taken off at some point in the car's history. i'm like the 3rd owner so you never really know what the other people have done to it...in fact this car has an alarm and remote start, but apparently the guy who sold it to me didn't know anything about it.
it would be nice to use but i don't have the remote to it or any info about it.
in fact a relay was bad--one day the car wouldn't start and i had to have my brother come over and help me figure it out. he just bypassed the relay (it was located under the steering column). i thought it was the ignition switch or something.
anyway, just once i'd like to be able to afford a new car just so that anything that happens to it, at least I did it!