Hey all,

While replacing my battery the cover shorted the pos and neg terminals. Burnt the installation on the ground wire pretty bad. I replaced the ground and recharged the battery. Now I am getting weak to no spark. The battery charged ok and reads 13.5+ volts. I also tested it with new plugs.

Any ideas if any thing could else have been damaged by the short and cause no spark?


Thanks,

Pat

 

Sounds like you fried either the coil, ignition module or the cam position sensor. If you have a shop manual, you can get the specs to test these parts. You have an '80 XLS right?

 

Thanks for the reply. Sorry I didn't state it is a 72 XLCH. It does have a ignition module. I haven't cracked the manaual yet.

Pat

 

You may have blown a fuse (or set off the circuit breaker) that is between the battery and the ignition switch. A circuit breaker would most surely reset it self however.
The simple test is to put a volt meter on the ignition switch terminal labled as 'I' (for ignition).
Do you get 12V at the switch?
If not, search for the fuse, or better yet just come on down the wire checking for voltage at each component in the wire. Somewhere there is a break.

If you have 12V at the switch, do you have 12V downstream of the switch? I am talking about at the coil, ignition module etc......pg

 

if its getting some spark at all i dont see how it could be the fuse or a breaker......but even then i dont know see how somthing else got fried while the fuse/breaker was still good?
what would happen to the points in this situation?

 

Fuses blow and breakers open because of only one reason. The reason is because of a short. He incurred a short when the battery lid grounded out.
What I suggested was that he check the ignition terminal to see if he has 12V at the switch.
You have to start somewhere when you are looking for an electrical problem, and that is the first place I would check. Then follow the wiring on to other points until the problem is located.
Is he getting 12V at the coil? He may have to look at the points gap setting, etc,etc. It is a process that he has follow through to find the problem.
I can think of nothing that could cause weak spark because of the battery shorting out. The two systems are not related except the ignition needs a 12V feed........pg