> When I tried to charge the battery with the Battery Tender,
> neither the red
> or green light lit up. The Battery Tender worked on my TR3B
> though. When the
> ignition is turned to the start mode, the car has no lights at all.
Sounds like a bad battery to me, perhaps an internally broken conductor.
Rare, but it happens. My suggestion is to get a decent voltmeter (HF sells
several digital ones that will do fine for about $10, less on sale) and do a
couple of tests :
First, charge the battery with a real battery charger (not just a tender).
Check that the voltage while charging rises to at least 14.2 volts.
Now disconnect the charger, and see that the voltage remains somewhere above
12.8. Connect the battery to the car (everything off of course), and
recheck the voltage.
Turn on the headlights (engine off) for about a minute, turn them off and
recheck the voltage. It should still be around 12.4 to 12.6.
If all that still looks OK, have a helper try to crank the engine while you
hold the meter leads directly on the battery posts. The voltage at the
posts should stay above 10 volts. If not, the battery is bad & should be
replaced before further testing.
If it stays high and the engine does not crank, repeat the experiment with
the meter leads on the big terminal on the starter solenoid, and the starter
body itself. If the voltage here drops to near 0 when your assistant turns
the key, you've got a bad cable or ground strap. If it stays high, and no
crank, then either the solenoid or the starter motor is bad. If I remember
right, you can access the motor terminal directly (where it connects to the
solenoid) on a TR6, so repeat the experiment one more time on the motor
terminal and housing.
Or, if you'd prefer, most auto parts stores will load-test a battery for
free these days. Their testers aren't always perfect, may not for example
find an internal intermittent connection, but as I said that's a pretty rare
occurrence.
Randall
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