The battery kept dying on Old Blue, and it was a pretty new battery so I figured it had to be something else. Alternator? Short draining the system? Tried this, tried that, tried the other thing. Everything seemed to be checking out all right. Leaving only the possibility of a short. Now a short in the electrical system would be pretty inexpensive to fix (39 cents or so), but can literally run into hundreds of dollars to find. Even on '69 LTD there are miles of wiring weaving throughout the car, rubbing up against metal where it could cause a short. I was not looking forward to that. In one last attempt to diagnose the issue, I swaped it's battery with the convertible's. That was over a week ago, and Old Blue has been starting with no problem whatsoever. Last evening it was pretty warm and I decided to take the convertible out for a drive. Not so much. It had inherited the exact same problem starting that Old Blue had. Sounded exactly the same, reacted exactly the same. Now I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but I think it's the battery. Time to find the receipt (hahahahahaha) and get a new one. $50 vs. several hundred. Even when I have to pay for a new battery (there is no way in hell I still have that receipt) it's better than a short in the system......
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And just so you can keep track of which car I'm talking about:
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This is Old Blue.
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This is The Convertible.
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This is The Subaru.
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2 comments:
As long as the battery doesn't die while we're in Eureka tomorrow....
Don't worry, the bad battery is still in the Convertible. I bought one of those "jump start your car" battery packs back when I wasn't sure what the problem was, and it's fully charges and in the trunk of the car. So, we've even got backup. Not to mention the full set of tools I bought for the ride home from California in it, that are still in the trunk. Ready for almost anything, knock on wood.....
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