Why you should remove the negative battery terminal before doing ANYTHING!!!!

I was lokking thorugh the Subaru manual to find out where the thermostat
was. I'm used to it being on TOP of the engine.

While it ididn't show the location, it did say, "Remove negative battery
terminal, and remove thermostat housing..."

Huh? Remove the - terminal berfore removing the thermostat housing?! WTF?!?!

Last night I went to pick up my papers for my "paper route" and saw a
big-ass GMC pickup I hadn't seen before. Then I saw one of my firend's
fathers, who started doing the papers about 10 days after I did. He
usually drive an '01 Pathfinder.

"Where's the Pathfinder?" "I wrecked it." "WHAT?!?!?!?!"

Well, he didn't really wreck it. He had a bad bulb in the overhead light.
He removed the lens, and the bulb was in pieces, but still working
intermittantly. He removed the bulb and replaced the lens, and then tried
to start the truck. No Go. The starter spins, but the engine doesn't catch.

Looks like he fried the ECU!!!! All the other lights work, the dome light
works, but the fuel pumpo doesn't energize. He tried the reset procedure
and nothing.

I had heard of this before; I can't remember what the car was, but someone
shorted out the ECU replacing the dome light...

 

Typical dome light bulb is a dual contact base, he may have caused a
momentary short circuit to ground removing the broken bulb. Sounds
far-fetched, but possible that that could have damaged something.

nate

 

Hachiroku wrote:

no way - the ecu's not even connected to the dome light. and they're
electrically protected against all kinds of "user error", including
battery reversal, over-voltage, dead shorts and static. short of direct
lightning strike, water damage, or fire, none of which have a single
damned thing to do with dome lights, the ecu's not going anywhere and
it's /certainly/ not going to be fubared by a bulb change.

 

Hi,
No way? If short caused a surge in the electrical system, anything is
possible. In cases like this mostly nothing serious happens but result
unpredictable. Protection is not absolute 100%.

 

Bullshit!!

 

Hmmm,
Live little longer and gain some more experience!

 

short won't cause voltage surge. measure the voltage across a battery
as you increase current load - voltage goes down, not up. only other
potential source of surge is back emf from relays, motors, etc, and
they're all diode/condenser protected, as is the ecu. bottom line: it's
not the dome light.

yeah, it could have been hit by meteorite.

yeah, it could have been hit by meteorite.

 

hmmm,
Whatever you think. A car battery has lots of energy in it.
Think current in this case.

 

do what i said - measure voltage as a function of load. then report
your results.

 

Hmmm,
No, current as a function of load! Do you remember the days of
generators under the automobile hoods?

 

electrical current /is/ load...

take any battery, then measure the voltage as you increase current load
on it. then let us know what happens. and how you think high current
[short] can cause a "surge".

why? have any basic laws of physics changed since then?

 

No. Some times in real world things happen where basic law has
difficulty to explain how and why.
First thing I learned about generator when I was a kid was polarizing.

 

trim posts

 

bull - that is a function of insufficient learning by the observer.

polarizing is not surge!

 

It's still bullshit. Maybe you could make up a scenereo where someone
unhooked all the grounds from the ECU, removed it from its metal
support brakets and insulated it and then wired it directly to the
dome light circuit but supporting such myths as changing a dome light
bulb fucked up an ECU is assanine.


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A short won't cause a voltage surge.

You might want to try starting with just plain thinking.
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I do, and there weren't ECUs then. Basing your argument on something
that is now non-existant is very telling.
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What does that have to do with a car that doesn't contain a generator?
What does that have to do with something supposedly related to a
battery?
Why aren't you answering his questions or providing results of the
tests that would prove your "surge" claim invalid?


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ok.
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You're kidding right?

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