72 supreme stock 350. Good afternoon everyone. Started my car fine today, got up the road a couple miles car started to feel like it was losing power. I thought maybe i was running out od gas because gauge doesnt work right. Put gas in car, tried to start it, kept cranking thougt maybe it was just a matter of picking up the gas. Cranked so long battery started to die. Also the positive cable was so hot the cable end dripped some lead. A gentleman eith a 64 ford stopped yo help. He checked carb, gas seemed to be coming out. Tried to hotshot, cranked, wouldnt start. Now it wont crank at all. Took battery to advance auto they checked it said battery had cca of 4 something and it was registering at like 12.4 volts. Kid said battery was damaged because its not suppised to show more then 12 volts. Based on those AA readings of the battery would that explain no cranking at all? Please help, thanks

 

A fully charged battery is 12.6v. My guess is the alternator or voltage reg is bad.

 

Sounds like you are not getting spark. Check that first. After you recharge the battery. You also may have cooked the starter from excessive cranking.

 

Ok follow up. When i hooked battery back up i noticed smoke coming from under the dist cap when i hooked up the negative cable. Buddy said prob ignition module under cap. Sound right? Difficult to replace?

 

If it is stock as you said in post 1, it would have a points distributor. So, no, a stock points distributor would not have a module in it. If it is a replacement HEI unit, or a stock distributor with a pertronix type conversion, it could be a modue inside that is smoking.
Take some pics of the distributor.

 

Will do

 

Agree with this...My 73 Chevelle has a GM HEI ignition, and that ignition module will leave you stranded. I had to get a tow home from a car show this summer, so now I keep an extra in the glove box. Typically, what happens is that the magnet in the module cracks, and then adds an extra set of positive and negative poles, and then you won't get correct spark signals.
Looks like this...

 

Not a good habit of cranking until the battery dies. Can kill the starter and degrades the battery (automotive lead acid batteries degrade with each deep discharge). Apparently you can also melt the battery terminals (never heard of this one before). I'd check the connections to be sure they are solid. Any resistance in the battery terminal / connection to the cable will cause it to heat up under load.

Don't trust what anybody says about a battery with too much voltage being "bad". Although it could be producing over 12V unloaded and still not have enough charge capacity to crank an engine. The key is how low the voltage goes when trying to crank. For sure the battery needs a full charge.