This will test you leccy know alls
Discussion
1996 Chim. I've never experienced this one before.
Got in to start - slight electrical 'click' but no start. THEN noticed the red/green lights for the heater/ventilator wheels flashing and clicking - slowly at first and then getting faster accompanied by the doors locks chattering (to each other? ... I guess they must be female!)
Does anyone have any idea what might be going on here please? At the moment I'm thinking poltergeist but hopefully there is someone who has experienced this before and can give me some simple fix.
Many thanks.
Got in to start - slight electrical 'click' but no start. THEN noticed the red/green lights for the heater/ventilator wheels flashing and clicking - slowly at first and then getting faster accompanied by the doors locks chattering (to each other? ... I guess they must be female!)
Does anyone have any idea what might be going on here please? At the moment I'm thinking poltergeist but hopefully there is someone who has experienced this before and can give me some simple fix.
Many thanks.
That's QUICK, brief and to the point ! ! !
Knackered? Hmmm, I don't see that in my copy of The IEE Wiring Regulations 17th Edition (BS 7671)
I'd changed the two CR1220 batteries in the key fob but no difference.
Misleadingly, the original battery didn't show the same symptoms - just sluggish turnover and so I replaced it about four years ago.
I guess cold winter nights killed it quickly and humanely.
Thanks for help - appreciated.
Knackered? Hmmm, I don't see that in my copy of The IEE Wiring Regulations 17th Edition (BS 7671)
I'd changed the two CR1220 batteries in the key fob but no difference.
Misleadingly, the original battery didn't show the same symptoms - just sluggish turnover and so I replaced it about four years ago.
I guess cold winter nights killed it quickly and humanely.
Thanks for help - appreciated.
For the future, get yourself one of these. It sits in the fag lighter and tells you immediately if your battery is below par before you try to start it. There are loads of them, this one also has a smartphone charger socket, which you might find handy. Anything below about 11.8 volts when you get into the car and you might be in grief
voltmeter thingy
For others reading this thread, this kind of fault is more often a knackered, or at least discharged, battery than anything else.
voltmeter thingy
For others reading this thread, this kind of fault is more often a knackered, or at least discharged, battery than anything else.
If you do check your IEE Regulations handbook you'll find you aren't qualified under the Competent Persons Scheme to work on the electrics in a Special Location like the driveway or garden - so if the car's outside you'll have to at least push it into the garage before touching anything...
Mornin,
1) I've ordered myself a 'voltmeter thingy' to light my fags with.
2) Competent Person? None of 'em 'round 'ere.
3) Ignition on, switch headlights on - still in the dark.
4) I went around the passenger side to look at Accumate Bat minder aaaand the red light is on BUT the amber and green are flashing alternately but I have lost the instructions so not sure of the precise meaning of the flashes other than it has never flashed before.
As 'engineer' says, it might be a flakey earth although car is in a garage with a boiler next to it (perhaps not a good idea on reflection). It could be the Accumate that has failed (Sorry, I mean KNACKERED in TVR parlance) or the battery. I'll extract battery tonight and buy a new one tomorrow. I hope I can then report it fixed but if not I may be making a nuisance of myself again.
Thank you Competent People.
1) I've ordered myself a 'voltmeter thingy' to light my fags with.
2) Competent Person? None of 'em 'round 'ere.
3) Ignition on, switch headlights on - still in the dark.
4) I went around the passenger side to look at Accumate Bat minder aaaand the red light is on BUT the amber and green are flashing alternately but I have lost the instructions so not sure of the precise meaning of the flashes other than it has never flashed before.
As 'engineer' says, it might be a flakey earth although car is in a garage with a boiler next to it (perhaps not a good idea on reflection). It could be the Accumate that has failed (Sorry, I mean KNACKERED in TVR parlance) or the battery. I'll extract battery tonight and buy a new one tomorrow. I hope I can then report it fixed but if not I may be making a nuisance of myself again.
Thank you Competent People.
Your door lock solenoids are linked to the car's security system, the alarm/immobiliser system is also connected to your hazard warning relay to trigger the indicators when you lock/unlock the car and/or when the alarm is triggered. The security system is very intolerant to low current situations, as such it can get it's knickers properly in a twist when it's not receiving the full compliment of volts and amps it's designed to operate with.
As Engineer 1949 says he reason your red/green lights on the heater/ventilator wheels are flashing is because the alarm/immobiliser system is finding an earth path through them, this is a fault that's been there for a long time but you're only just seeing it now the immobiliser/alarm units aren't getting the full compliment of amps/volts they need to function correctly. The clicking you're hearing will either be the relays inside the immobiliser chattering or more likely the hazard warning relay and or the central locking relay itself being triggered by the alarm/immobiliser system which as I say is getting it's knickers in a twist due to a low voltage/amp supply.
The reason your alarm/immobiliser system is suddenly getting is getting less ampm/volts from your battery is ultimately down the recent fall in ambient temperatures, your 4 year old battery capacity (how many amp-hours it can hold) is greatly reduced in cold weather.
As ambient temperatures drop the specific gravity of the electrolyte inside a lead acid battery increases dramatically too, this is why car batteries tend to die on a cold winter morning. In the good old days when I was always completely skint and running old bangers (normally fitted with a battery I'd scavenged from a breakers yard) to save being late for work on frosty morning I'd often get the car started by pouring a kettle full of boiling water over the battery. By temporarily raising the temperature of the battery this trick was usually enough to get the car started and me out of trouble before I could get down the scrap yard to get myself another £10 used battery, obviously I don't recommend this method in a Chimaera unless you want a passenger footwell full of water but you could use a hot water bottle with good effect.
The thing is not only is the cranking capacity of your battery greatly diminished in this cold weather but the oil in your sump is also a lot thicker, this thicker oil is much more difficult to pump around your engine so your cold & already chemically weakened battery has you work twice as hard to crank the engine. If your battery is in a marginal state before hand these two cold weather factors combined will be sure to come together to reveal themselves as a no start where the car started fine when ambient temperatures were just a little warmer.
Now consider the very inadequate gauge starter cable used by TVR, this cable is over 7ft long, and as we all know from schoolboy physics the longer a wire the higher it's resistance will be. This starter cable selected by TVR (probably for cost reasons) was of marginal gauge when new, after 20 years of going hot & cold draped over the bell housing at the back of the engine it's common to find this weedy cable is heavily internally corroded too, which of course further increases it's resistance.
Finally the earthing paths on this car are typically poor, so in the end (and especially in cold weather) you've actually got yourself the perfect multi ingredient recipe to make up a non starting TVR.
Cold Weather + Already Rather Tired Battery + High Electrolyte Specific Gravity + Thickened Engine Oil + High Resistance In The Light Gauge & Corroded 7ft Long Starter Cable + A Marginal Earth Return Path = NO START!
You probably have all or at least most of the above all conspiring together to mean the no-start issue was always waiting in the wings to catch you out, the tipping point in your chain of weakened and marginally performing components was the recent fall in ambient temperature. Just because your car started Ok in ambient temperatures above 8 degrees doesn't mean your starting system was healthy, the increase in electrolyte specific gravity is much greater between 8 degrees and zero than it is between 16 degrees and 8, as such the recent cold snap just exposes an already marginal chain of likely issues in some or all elements that make up the whole starting system.
Basically from 8 degrees ambient to 5 degrees ambient the specific gravity of your electrolyte starts to shoot up, at this point your already marginal battery and starting system will start to reveal it's failings. From 8 degrees to 5 degrees the drop in battery cranking capacity is even greater and from there to zero it's huge so everything in the chain of stater components must be 100% spot on or your certain to have issues. A fully charged healthy lead-acid battery can actually survive conditions down to –50 C, but a battery that starts with a low state of charge can easily freeze at just –1 C. When the water in a battery freezes it expands and will cause irreparable damage to the cells, at which point it'll be completely beyond recovery so should be disposed of responsibly.
I'd say you probably entered the winter with a weakened battery, but before you replace I'd remove it and put it on a decent regulated battery charger for 12 hours then have it properly tested with a professional heavy discharge tester. Knowing these cars as I do you are also strongly advised to look beyond your battery, as already started the 7ft long starter cable used by TVR was of a very light gauge for it's considerable length, after all these years of service it'll almost certainly have suffered from internal corrosion too which will dramatically increase it's resistance.
You clearly have an earthing issue too, highlighted by the fact your heater control LEDs are pulsing, the immobiliser/alarm modules do not like a low current current supply but even in this situational you should not be seeing those LEDs coming on, the low current situation is actually just exposing your existing poor earthing issues.
If you do need to replace your battery you should consider one using AGM technology, Absorbed Glass Mat batteries have much lower internal resistance and are significantly better at dealing with low temperature situations. An AGM battery will typically tolerate a greater number of full discharge situations when compared with a traditional flooded lead acid battery so there really are only advantages in going AGM which is why the military have used this technology for over 20 years. You should seek out the heaviest & biggest battery you can fit in the footwell that offers 600 cold cranking amps as a minimum, with lead acid batteries chemistry and physics dictate that bigger is always better. The weight of the battery for it's given size is a good indication of quality because it's telling you (more or less) how much lead is in there and the quality of the lead alloy used.
What ever you do don't just replace the battery, remove it and charge it slowly then have it professionally tested, test your alternator output and finally follow my advice to replace the weedy TVR starter cable adding a heavy duty earth return from the engine block directly back to the negative battery terminal too. You may well find your battery can be recovered, you can then put your new battery money into improving the starter cable and fitting the additional engine block to battery earth cable both of which will give your recovered battery a much easier life in future.
The professional approach to implementing a permanent fix to your problem is not to simply replace the battery and hope for the best, a new battery will probably solve the problem in the short term but the truth is this approach is really just masking the underlying weaknesses of the woefully inadequate cabling used by TVR and the inherently poor earthing these cars often suffer from. You may get another three years or so out of your new battery before your starting problems return one cold morning, but given a properly maintained lead acid battery should last 7 years you are much better off fixing the underlying issues as it'll be cheaper in the long run and give you far superior reliability/starting for many many years to come.
As Engineer 1949 says he reason your red/green lights on the heater/ventilator wheels are flashing is because the alarm/immobiliser system is finding an earth path through them, this is a fault that's been there for a long time but you're only just seeing it now the immobiliser/alarm units aren't getting the full compliment of amps/volts they need to function correctly. The clicking you're hearing will either be the relays inside the immobiliser chattering or more likely the hazard warning relay and or the central locking relay itself being triggered by the alarm/immobiliser system which as I say is getting it's knickers in a twist due to a low voltage/amp supply.
The reason your alarm/immobiliser system is suddenly getting is getting less ampm/volts from your battery is ultimately down the recent fall in ambient temperatures, your 4 year old battery capacity (how many amp-hours it can hold) is greatly reduced in cold weather.
As ambient temperatures drop the specific gravity of the electrolyte inside a lead acid battery increases dramatically too, this is why car batteries tend to die on a cold winter morning. In the good old days when I was always completely skint and running old bangers (normally fitted with a battery I'd scavenged from a breakers yard) to save being late for work on frosty morning I'd often get the car started by pouring a kettle full of boiling water over the battery. By temporarily raising the temperature of the battery this trick was usually enough to get the car started and me out of trouble before I could get down the scrap yard to get myself another £10 used battery, obviously I don't recommend this method in a Chimaera unless you want a passenger footwell full of water but you could use a hot water bottle with good effect.
The thing is not only is the cranking capacity of your battery greatly diminished in this cold weather but the oil in your sump is also a lot thicker, this thicker oil is much more difficult to pump around your engine so your cold & already chemically weakened battery has you work twice as hard to crank the engine. If your battery is in a marginal state before hand these two cold weather factors combined will be sure to come together to reveal themselves as a no start where the car started fine when ambient temperatures were just a little warmer.
Now consider the very inadequate gauge starter cable used by TVR, this cable is over 7ft long, and as we all know from schoolboy physics the longer a wire the higher it's resistance will be. This starter cable selected by TVR (probably for cost reasons) was of marginal gauge when new, after 20 years of going hot & cold draped over the bell housing at the back of the engine it's common to find this weedy cable is heavily internally corroded too, which of course further increases it's resistance.
Finally the earthing paths on this car are typically poor, so in the end (and especially in cold weather) you've actually got yourself the perfect multi ingredient recipe to make up a non starting TVR.
Cold Weather + Already Rather Tired Battery + High Electrolyte Specific Gravity + Thickened Engine Oil + High Resistance In The Light Gauge & Corroded 7ft Long Starter Cable + A Marginal Earth Return Path = NO START!
You probably have all or at least most of the above all conspiring together to mean the no-start issue was always waiting in the wings to catch you out, the tipping point in your chain of weakened and marginally performing components was the recent fall in ambient temperature. Just because your car started Ok in ambient temperatures above 8 degrees doesn't mean your starting system was healthy, the increase in electrolyte specific gravity is much greater between 8 degrees and zero than it is between 16 degrees and 8, as such the recent cold snap just exposes an already marginal chain of likely issues in some or all elements that make up the whole starting system.
Basically from 8 degrees ambient to 5 degrees ambient the specific gravity of your electrolyte starts to shoot up, at this point your already marginal battery and starting system will start to reveal it's failings. From 8 degrees to 5 degrees the drop in battery cranking capacity is even greater and from there to zero it's huge so everything in the chain of stater components must be 100% spot on or your certain to have issues. A fully charged healthy lead-acid battery can actually survive conditions down to –50 C, but a battery that starts with a low state of charge can easily freeze at just –1 C. When the water in a battery freezes it expands and will cause irreparable damage to the cells, at which point it'll be completely beyond recovery so should be disposed of responsibly.
I'd say you probably entered the winter with a weakened battery, but before you replace I'd remove it and put it on a decent regulated battery charger for 12 hours then have it properly tested with a professional heavy discharge tester. Knowing these cars as I do you are also strongly advised to look beyond your battery, as already started the 7ft long starter cable used by TVR was of a very light gauge for it's considerable length, after all these years of service it'll almost certainly have suffered from internal corrosion too which will dramatically increase it's resistance.
You clearly have an earthing issue too, highlighted by the fact your heater control LEDs are pulsing, the immobiliser/alarm modules do not like a low current current supply but even in this situational you should not be seeing those LEDs coming on, the low current situation is actually just exposing your existing poor earthing issues.
If you do need to replace your battery you should consider one using AGM technology, Absorbed Glass Mat batteries have much lower internal resistance and are significantly better at dealing with low temperature situations. An AGM battery will typically tolerate a greater number of full discharge situations when compared with a traditional flooded lead acid battery so there really are only advantages in going AGM which is why the military have used this technology for over 20 years. You should seek out the heaviest & biggest battery you can fit in the footwell that offers 600 cold cranking amps as a minimum, with lead acid batteries chemistry and physics dictate that bigger is always better. The weight of the battery for it's given size is a good indication of quality because it's telling you (more or less) how much lead is in there and the quality of the lead alloy used.
What ever you do don't just replace the battery, remove it and charge it slowly then have it professionally tested, test your alternator output and finally follow my advice to replace the weedy TVR starter cable adding a heavy duty earth return from the engine block directly back to the negative battery terminal too. You may well find your battery can be recovered, you can then put your new battery money into improving the starter cable and fitting the additional engine block to battery earth cable both of which will give your recovered battery a much easier life in future.
The professional approach to implementing a permanent fix to your problem is not to simply replace the battery and hope for the best, a new battery will probably solve the problem in the short term but the truth is this approach is really just masking the underlying weaknesses of the woefully inadequate cabling used by TVR and the inherently poor earthing these cars often suffer from. You may get another three years or so out of your new battery before your starting problems return one cold morning, but given a properly maintained lead acid battery should last 7 years you are much better off fixing the underlying issues as it'll be cheaper in the long run and give you far superior reliability/starting for many many years to come.
davidindevon said:
That's QUICK, brief and to the point ! ! !
Knackered? Hmmm, I don't see that in my copy of The IEE Wiring Regulations 17th Edition (BS 7671)
I'd changed the two CR1220 batteries in the key fob but no difference.
Misleadingly, the original battery didn't show the same symptoms - just sluggish turnover and so I replaced it about four years ago.
I guess cold winter nights killed it quickly and humanely.
Thanks for help - appreciated.
Well your right it was a fast reply, but the title mentioned the word “test” so wanted to get my answer in there early, and couldn’t elaborate as I needed to be get some shut eye before my 5:30 am start.. anyway I digress.Knackered? Hmmm, I don't see that in my copy of The IEE Wiring Regulations 17th Edition (BS 7671)
I'd changed the two CR1220 batteries in the key fob but no difference.
Misleadingly, the original battery didn't show the same symptoms - just sluggish turnover and so I replaced it about four years ago.
I guess cold winter nights killed it quickly and humanely.
Thanks for help - appreciated.
The reason why I know this is likely to be you problem as I experienced a similar issue recently. I went away for a couple of weeks ad inadvertently left my dash cam plugged in and switched on. Went to the garage to start the car and realized this faux par. The car was dead..
Trying to be clever I thought I’d just plug in the battery optimizer in the passenger footwell and give it another go..
Bad move, this just gave the damn thing enough juice to get seriously annoying.. this is when the door locks, window lights, hazard lights started behaving like something from Close Encounters.. oh and all the time it had the power to repeatedly twitch the door locks, the pile of junk had the audacity to set the siren off at full tilt. Which in my garage was absolutely deafening.
Armed with two pieces of kitchen roll one stuffed in each ear, I had to remove the front wheel and dis-arm the pesky critter.. Luckily the car sits on a ramp.. if I’d had to start jacking it up I may have torched the dam thing..
Though not as likely with the distributer set up with modern ECU's and electronic engine management and ignigtions anything below 13 volts can give issues. Yes I know it's supposed to be a 12 volt system but it seems they actually expect over 13 volts and anew fully charged 12 volt battery will have a little over 14 volts in it. They call it progress by the way!
m4tti said:
davidindevon said:
That's QUICK, brief and to the point ! ! !
Knackered? Hmmm, I don't see that in my copy of The IEE Wiring Regulations 17th Edition (BS 7671)
I'd changed the two CR1220 batteries in the key fob but no difference.
Misleadingly, the original battery didn't show the same symptoms - just sluggish turnover and so I replaced it about four years ago.
I guess cold winter nights killed it quickly and humanely.
Thanks for help - appreciated.
Well your right it was a fast reply, but the title mentioned the word “test” so wanted to get my answer in there early, and couldn’t elaborate as I needed to be get some shut eye before my 5:30 am start.. anyway I digress.Knackered? Hmmm, I don't see that in my copy of The IEE Wiring Regulations 17th Edition (BS 7671)
I'd changed the two CR1220 batteries in the key fob but no difference.
Misleadingly, the original battery didn't show the same symptoms - just sluggish turnover and so I replaced it about four years ago.
I guess cold winter nights killed it quickly and humanely.
Thanks for help - appreciated.
The reason why I know this is likely to be you problem as I experienced a similar issue recently. I went away for a couple of weeks ad inadvertently left my dash cam plugged in and switched on. Went to the garage to start the car and realized this faux par. The car was dead..
Trying to be clever I thought I’d just plug in the battery optimizer in the passenger footwell and give it another go..
Bad move, this just gave the damn thing enough juice to get seriously annoying.. this is when the door locks, window lights, hazard lights started behaving like something from Close Encounters.. oh and all the time it had the power to repeatedly twitch the door locks, the pile of junk had the audacity to set the siren off at full tilt. Which in my garage was absolutely deafening.
Armed with two pieces of kitchen roll one stuffed in each ear, I had to remove the front wheel and dis-arm the pesky critter.. Luckily the car sits on a ramp.. if I’d had to start jacking it up I may have torched the dam thing..
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