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I bought my 91 dodge dynasty a few months back and everything was in working order. Just a couple days ago my battery went dead. I recharged it and made sure nothing was left on. I came back to start it a day later and it was dead again. Once again, I charged the battery, hooked it back up, and started to check for anything to be left on. I looked under the hood and heard a very high pitched buzzing coming from what I thinkis the fusebox. I know what my fusebox is, I'm just not sure whether or not the noise is coming from it or something else. The buzzing noize made the battery run dead in a matter of minutes. When I tried starting it, i was told that sparks flew from the ground cable attached to the battery. I get my liscence in a week and I'm not going to have a car if I can't figure out how to fix it. If you know anything about this or have had the same problem please give me some feedback...Thanks  

first....  i would stop what i was doing trying to start the car...

take the battery cables off and properly clean them..  use a wire brush or sand paper... the surface of the contact area needs to be clean... and shiny...  the dark hard crusty stuff is lead oxide and is a ceramic ... an insulator..

when you get sparks coming out of the battery cables...  the cables are dirty and LOOSE...  warning...

batteries when charging and discharging release Hydrogen gas...  these sparks can ignite the gas and blow the battery up...  it usually happens when the liquid level inside the battery is low..



i use HOT water and a stainless steel wire tooth brush to clean most of the cables lately.. as the battery cable cleaners have broken that i have gotten lately..

here is an manual section on the battery...

feel free to ask questions.... and there will be a LOT of questions...

you can join the AZ web site at the upper right corner of their web page...

http://www.autozone.com:80/autozone/repairinfo/repairguide/repairGuideContent.jsp?pageId=0900c15280268120  

Thats exactly what I did when I put the battery back in after charging it and the sparks flew afterwards..  

please spend your time and read the linked info above..


lets start with the simple and cheep stuff...

do you have a digital volt meter... if you don't.. they can be had for 7 bucks to 25 bucks..

a lot of parts stores have these from innova for about 16 bucks..



harbor freight stores have these for about 20 bucks



either will last you for decades..


next.... i would take a digital volt meter...

set it to 20 volts DC scale...

turn the headlights on for one minute. then turn them off...  engine is off.. for this.... this removes the surface charge on the battery to give you the actual amount of charge in the battery..

12.65 volts is a fully charged battery
12.45 volts is a 3/4 charged battery
12.25 volts is a 1/2 charged battery..

you need to have over 12.5 volts for proper testing of the various circuits..  charge the battery on a 10 amp charger until you can see the amp meter on the charge drop from its highest rate.. or an hour..

most chain parts stores will charge and then test your battery for free..   batteries really need to be charged before testing.. or it MAY test bad...  it will almost always test bad when the battery is discharged..


start the engine and turn on the headlights..

1. test between the positive and the negative battery posts.  14.1 to 14.8 volts is expected.

2. test between the negative battery post and the engine block. 0.04 volts is expected..

3. test between the negative battery post and the body... 0.02 volts is expected..

4. test between the Engine block and the body..  0.02 volts is expected.

if you get 0.00 on the last 3 tests.. change the meter setting to 2 volts DC scale.. and retest.. the last 3...

this test takes about 2 minutes...

post your results by test number..

if you get more than the 0.04 or 0.02 volts on the display...

you have a bad ground between those parts..



why do this test....   bad grounds will stop any new car in its tracks...

why... electrons flow from Negative to positive...  if you loose a ground.. or it becomes intermittent..  you won't have any power for that circuit...  just like a table light when the plug falls part way out of the wall...  the light will go out..

also i have fixed a LOT of cars lately with that  2 minute test... some hot water and a stainless steel wire toothbrush ...

finding the ground connections.. removing them from where they are bolted down after counting how many wires are on each one..   wire brushing both sides of the ring terminals...   wire brushing the back side of the nut.. wire brushing the mounting pad...  washing with HOT water..  

putting them back on.. and counting to verify the number of wires is the same...

the verifying with the same test again...  

I can't even start the car because thats how fast the buzzing noise causes the battery to run dead..  

Carver13:
Thats exactly what I did when I put the battery back in after charging it and the sparks flew afterwards..

ah... i am hoping that you hooked the battery cables up properly..   not reversing. them..

you still have loose terminals..  or a serious problem..

clean and verify that they are tight on the battery.

verify the wires are properly attached to the cable ends...

do you have a digital camera????   if so. take some pictures...  use photobucket.com to upload them to.. then hover your cursor over the saved images.. a menu box will drop down..  click on the 4th link down.. then paste that text here.. it will show up as a picture...  

if you have a digital volt meter...

do the tests any way..   while the key is on and the headlights on.. engine NOT running is OK..

post the results..

do a second batch of tests... this time with somebody attempting to crank the engine.. for test 1 and 2...

can you identify what is buzzing???????  

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this is with the 3.0 motor...


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this is with the 3.3 or 3.8 motors



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you will want to print these 5 pages...  

oh... if the buzzing of one of the relays causes the battery to go dead.. you might need to recharge the battery and then have it load tested ...


please. please.. please...     DO NOT PULL A BATTERY CABLE with the engine running to test the charging system.. it blows out the alternator.. it was done before people had volt meters to test the system properly..  pulling a cable can cause the alternator to put out a voltage spike of over 100 volts for a split second

most things in the car burn out at 20 volts... the battery stops the voltage from going over 15.5 or so..  without the load of the battery.. the charging system can blow out very expensive components..

loose battery cables can also do the same thing..  

Okayy im going to take the battery to o'reillys soon and find out if its gone bad. Not sure if this has anything to do with it, but all the wires under my hood look kinda "iffy"...they have the stock black tubing around them, but they look like they have athletic tape wrapped around them at the intersections of different wires...is this stock?  

yes... i am only worried at this moment about the battery post connections...


this is a replacement when the original end has failed..

i have found the wires under the clamp loose so many times that i keep fresh versions of these with me all the time..



do have the battery charged at O... then they can load test it..

this is what the battery post brush looks like..    you push it down while turning to the right and it cleans the post surface...   you pull the cap off the other end and the tapered wire brush cleans the inside of the terminal...