1990 Lexus Ls 400 Won't Start New Battery

[Mike Hoop]

I love my 90 ls 400, and I cant' stand not driving it, the other day I went to start it and I got a single click and the connections on the batt became very hot... I inspected the new connections and batt, and everything was fine... I tried a couple of more times, and then everything went dead, checked all the fuses under hood and in car, and everythings ok...I spent $140 on that die- hard batt. and had It retested, It is not the reason I don't have power... I ordered the starter, but when I replace it how will I get power to it now... I don't even have a dome light right now, again I checked cables and connections and battery all those are good...do those relay switches in the fuse box under the hood have anything to do with that, or is there an internal switch that opens in case of an overload.. If so how do I replace diagnose or reset it... HELP

[Mike Hoop]

I love my 90 ls 400, and I cant' stand not driving it, the other day I went to start it and I got a single click and the connections on the batt became very hot... I inspected the new connections and batt, and everything was fine... I tried a couple of more times, and then everything went dead, checked all the fuses under hood and in car, and everythings ok...I spent $140 on that die- hard batt. and had It retested, It is not the reason I don't have power... I ordered the starter, but when I replace it how will I get power to it now... I don't even have a dome light right now, again I checked cables and connections and battery all those are good...do those relay switches in the fuse box under the hood have anything to do with that, or is there an internal switch that opens in case of an overload.. If so how do I replace diagnose or reset it... HELP

Well I took care of my own problem this time, the ground wire to the chasis was melted from holding the solenoid closed for too long (woops) And I think instead of the starter being bad its the starter relay in the fusebox under the hood

[landar]

Mike,

If the connections on the battery became "very hot", then you may indeed have a bad connection(s) at the battery. Heat is caused by current flow thru resistance. A good connection should not become excessively hot even if you have a shorted starter(the starter would become hot). I have seen battery cables which look like they are making good connection but are getting very hot because of a poor, high resistance connection internally. And it turned out that the terminal head to cable was bad inside the cable itself. It was not something you could visually verify. Once the cable was replaced, everything was normal.

You can use a voltmeter to check for a voltage drop across connections while trying to start. You should not have more than a few tenths of a volt on any connection. Remember that a closed circuit is only as good as the weakest link. ANY bad connection from the battery to the starter and back to ground can cause the whole thing to malfunction. Attention to detail is paramount in solving this issue.

[LScott400]

You can use a voltmeter to check for a voltage drop across connections while trying to start. You should not have more than a few tenths of a volt on any connection.

+1 on the voltage drop testing. This seems to be a lost diagnostic technique. Glad you brought it up!

[Mike Hoop]

You can use a voltmeter to check for a voltage drop across connections while trying to start. You should not have more than a few tenths of a volt on any connection.

+1 on the voltage drop testing. This seems to be a lost diagnostic technique. Glad you brought it up!

Thank you for the help, however I did discver that the starter was faulty and proceded with the job. Sorry I have not responded in so long. I did try the voltage drop test before I replaced the starter, thank you for the info