don't put your battery in backwards.

NYSpeed Automotive
1

So I’ve been putting off posting this for a few days. Last week, I had a wicked bad allergies/flu/AIDS/something, so I went back to the rez to see the doctor. Anyways, on the way back up, I stopped in Springville at Emerling Ford to get a new Ford battery for my '94 Thunderbird, 4.6. It’s got about 99.5K on it, and I’ve noticed that if I’m listening to the radio while working on the car, getting a lil hard to start after like 30mins. It’s had the same battery since I bought the car 2yrs ago at 44K, so meh - I’ll get a new battery.

So I put the new battery in. Cables have a hard time reaching it. I eventually get them on there, and poof… a quick spark. Kids, don’t try to fix stuff on 6 brands of cold medicine, it’s going to end up badly. So I look at what I’m doing… wtf, I’m a retard - turn the battery around, hook it up properly, and I’m on my way.

But of course, the charge light is on in the car, and judging from the stock gauge, I’m around 12V charging. Whatever, gotta get this back up to Buffalo. So over the course of the next two days, I test the alternator, it’s bad - I replace that with a new Ford unit. I replace a 175amp fuse right on the underhood fuse box per my dad… take a look at it once replaced - it was def Cooked something fierce - got a new 175amp fuse from Ford. My head unit was cooked too, but it was having internal intermittent sound issues, so whatever - the stocker’s reliable and I’m getting a new one very soon.

After I get the charging system back in order - it runs fine just driving around it’s def. charging consistently, good deal. BUT,if you get on the gas, like WOT, it takes a couple seconds to get going - and it’s incredibly slow. I don’t do that at All anymore for reasons I’m getting into in a second… Now I have a CEL. This popped on about 4 days after the fact, after the new 175amp fuse and alternator. I get it checked at Advance… it’s running lean. No other codes/sensors come up. I’ve been running 93 since I bought the car. Replaced the fuel filter with the stock Ford one about 2K miles ago. What’s wrong now? Just looking for any ideas here. Never replaced the fuel pump, but I never run below 1/4 tank and I’ve never had any issues with it before *whistling, etc.

Feel free to flame away. Easily one of the stupidest things I’ve done to a car in quite some time :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance for any help.

2

PCM blown?

3

It crossed my mind. But wouldn’t there be a code for that if it was? And if it was a blown PCM, limp-home mode is usually more rich than lean… ? I don’t know. i’m just throwing some stuff out here. I’m meeting with my buddy who’s a Ford service dept manager in Bradford tomorrow, but I’m just seeing if I can come up with anything now. I have had a couple other people guess the PCM tho.

Say it was that. Typically, if you get the same PCM from that year/engine of car - should that, in theory, work?

4

my roommate and I did the same thing on a car we bought. Guy had the wrong color terminals on the wires and we were in a hurry. Long story short, we fried the ecu.

5

Hm… makes sense. When you to to replace them… aside from a grounding strap and resetting the PCM after install, anything special you have to do, typically?

6

I dropped a ratchet on a metal grounded battery shield in my Dad’s Mitsu Diamante while tightening the positive terminal.

Positive terminal> the ratchet> to the shield= sweet fire and burned shield.

Looked cool while happening.

7

i did that to my f150 right in fromt of the guy i was trying to sell it to. it was shooting sparks all over and then i realized what i had done :frowning: but WTF it started right up and he bought it :slight_smile:

8

Usually the ECU in a ford will toss a code if there is a computer fault usually. Only thing I could suggest is try pulling the battery. After doing that turn the headlight switch on for 30 seconds, turn it off. Connect battery and start car see if it runs better.

9

ye i did the same thing. stock battery had the terminals closer to the front…when i bought a new one they were close to the firewall and the cables couldnt reach so i rotated the battery and forgot to rotate my hands when putting the cable on…burned the 5dollar fuse
shit happenes

10

Yeah, I did that on one of my z’s and melted the jumper cables. It was pretty crazy.

11

Jeeze and I think I remember reading somewhere recently (probably here or dubsinthebuff) that temporarily hooking up the battery wires backwards is the “VW Fix-all.” I thought that sounded crazy goofy. Reversing the polarity on a DC circuit usually results in the smoke being let out of the circuit.

I had an EE professor who swore that circuits run on smoke. He proved it by pointing out that as soon as you let the smoke out of the circuit it stopped working.

12

i did it to a grand am gt but there was lots of smoke

13

*ended up being the MAF. had ford replace that, cleared the CEL, runs better than ever

:gotme:

bad boy’s gettin sold as soon as i get enough $$ for a civic or camry… through playing the domestic game for a while