Evening Everyone,

Long story short, my dumb hungover *** crossed the wires from my jeep to my '68 Cutlass when jumping it this morning. They were on the jeep correctly, but not to the Cutlass. Big spark, woke me the hell up and took it off right away. Put them right for 10-15 min and all I'm getting is the tik tik tik tik. What should be my 1st step on damage control? Terminals are fine, nothing's melted or anything. Any suggestions (after a "what the hell were you thinking") are greatly appreciated!

 

Is the tic tic tic on the Jeep or the Olds? You could have damaged the charging system on both cars.

 

Just the Olds, Jeep’s fine.

 

Measure the battery voltage it may have a bad cell. You won't know if you damaged anything until you get the engine running.

 

If a little puff of smoke came out of your alternator, you probably blew the diodes and your alternator will need to be rebuilt. Been there, done that...

Randy C.

 

Start here.

But that wouldn't prevent it from starting

 

Since you were trying to jump start the Cutlass, the battery was obviously low to begin with. When you crossed the jumper cables, the charge on the low battery was depleted and now it's really low.

 

The battery is about 6mos old but I haven’t driven in the last 4-5mos and never pulled the negative cable off. I just had it hooked up (correctly) again for about 20min. Headlights won’t even come on. I’ll get it charged up at autozone and see what happens. Thank you everyone!

 

You stated: "The battery is about 6 mos. old" - does that mean you put a battery in your car 6 months ago?
If you put a battery in your car 6 mos. ago, was the battery you put in your car a brand new battery which was completely charged (voltage greater than 13.5V)? I suspect you installed a brand new fully charged battery?
Or, was the battery you put in your car 6 mos. ago NOT a brand new battery but instead a battery which was simply fully charged?

If you put a brand new fully charged battery into your car 6 months ago (even if you did not remove the negative ground battery cable) you likely have a serious parasitic draw somewhere in the system which you need to address. A brand new fully charged battery should be fully capable of starting the car after sitting for 6 months. I suspect an issue with parasitic draw.

While you're @ AutoZone, purchase a multimeter if you don't own one. You're going to need to address your charging system with proper diagnostics. You cannot perform diagnostics w/o the correct tools. FWIW, you might very well consider the purchase of a FAST battery charger. They've come down drastically in price over the years and good ones can be obtained for very reasonable prices. They save tons of time and provide a great level of capability to your charging knowledge mindset when coupled w/ a multimeter.

Example (only):

 

EDIT: I don’t know why I was thinking you said 6 days when you said 6 months. Maybe this fall back one hour in time thing? Apologies for thinking 6 days. Yeah, six months is borderline, but you should still have a multimeter and possibly a FAST charger.

 

If NOTHING works, and your sure you have good electrical connections to the battery and cables, I’d start by looking over the fusible links.

 

X2 fusible links

 

If your car has a fusible link it will be on the red wire that runs from the horn relay to the bulkhead connector. The link will be located at the horn relay end and have heat shrink over it. A fully charged battery is 12.7 volts not 13.5.

 

I brought the battery to autozone to charge it up and it’s at about 12.4. I checked for the fusible link and I found nothing like the manual or you guys describe, I found this. Gave it a squeeze and I heard crackling and when I opened it sediment of a glass fuse came out of it. Is this a hack job or a common substitution?

 

If it IS a substitution, any idea what fuse it was?

 

I don't know the exact location you removed this wire from, but it is NOT a fusible link. It is nothing more than a wire w/ a fuse in it. I have no clue what size fuse. I'm not certain where it came from on your car so I can't say what it is for. If you believe it was supposed to be a wire for a fusible link then someone probably substituted a wire w/ a fuse in it for a fusible link. Again, it is not a fusible link though. Plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating how to create a fusible link. If you removed this from the same location which Eric described, then it most likely was substituted incorrectly for a fusible link.

 

That was probably the fuse for the A/C high speed blower. Not the fusible link.

Look for this:

 

Got ya. It was maybe 4” from the horn relay. If it is the hi/low for the ac, well that’s been disconnected for at least the 3 years I’ve had it so no worries there. I appreciate all the help. I’m a chef by trade, automotive electrical is never been my strong suit!

What I’m guessing is the actual fusible link

Original one in question

Also guessing a hack job.

 

 

The melted insulation on the fusible link wire coming out of that splice suggests that is your problem.