This afternoon I finally got up the nerve to try and crank the sleeping beauty...but to no avail
. Checked timing, set the fuel pressure, primed the engine, topped off the coolant, etc. And then...BOOM.
Just kidding! Actually, there was no boom, and there's the rub
. I couldn't get it to fire off. Played with the timing a little and it had no effect. Looked down at my voltage gage and it measured about 11-1/2 volts...hmmm. That can't be good I thought to myself
So I hit the cutoff switch and measured the voltage on the battery voltage. 11-1/2 V again. Hmmm...now I start to worry. So I threw the charger on it for a while and it brought the battery voltage up to 12.4 V. Then I put a battery load tester on it and that pulled it right back back down to 11.5 V or so..uh oh..I think to myself
.
Funny thing is it turned the engine over with no problems. I cranked on it for a total of about 5 minutes this afternoon and it the engine never slowed down. So on the up side, my engine and starter grounds must be good
. hehe..
If I recall correctly, these batteries are made up of a dozen 1.2V cells. Is this correct. So, I should have terminal voltage of around 13.8 - 14.4 volts normally? The battery, as indicated in the thread title is an Optima that I purchased from Summit about 2 years ago and (unfortunately
) it has sat on the shelf or in the car ever since.
Am I correct in deducing my battery is BONED?
Has anyone had a similar problem with Optima batteries. (Okay, okay, no funny comments about how no one else's build has taken 2+ years
!)
Would this explain why I couldn't get the engine to fire. I only had 11.5V to the MSD, which I suspect is not enough (?).
Thanks so much for your help!
Mike