[thrasherx]

Due to an unfortunate series of events, my car will not start without being jumped. This past weekend, a friend and I replaced my leaking Master Cylinder with a new one. I had the radio on with the car turned off for awhile which lead to a dead battery. No problem though, we jumped it and it was fine. Subsequently, we had to jump it every time after that (with the exception of once at a gas station.) Long story short, I parked my car that night, and to my suprise the next morning, someone had broken into my car with a set of filed down keys. They got my head unit (1 month old eclipse cd3000) and my custom cup holders (from a thunderbird), but were unable to steal the car (thank you electrical problem.) They left their filed down honda key on the shift boot, but the other keys (mazda, nissan... etc.) were left in the ignition. I doubt that there's been damage done to the actual lockset on the ignition (if that makes sense) but I need help with this one. Do you think this problem originated from replacing the master cylinder, or from the theft? The guys at Checkers auto parts said that the alternator and battery look to be fine although there's no way of telling without completely charging the battery. They told me that it looks like a connection problem. Help?

P.S. I left it parked for 3 weeks while I travel home for christmas. Hopefully having pulled the fuse to the ignition will be enough of a deterrent for anyone who tries to get smart.

 

[thrasherx]

Is there any way that it's something other than the battery? I was thinking that it could possibly be the ignitor (a honda mechanic told me that there was a recall on them from 88-91). Hopefully it's just the battery, and nothing else. I'm also wondering about relocating my next cd player, or getting a nakamichi tape deck with aux in. They look extremely stock, but are the best head units money can buy. Plus... who listens to cds when you have a mp3 player?

 

[thrasherx]

thanks guys for all of the help. i won't be able to see my car until january 8th (hopefully it's still where i left it.) the connections look fairly clean on the battery and we've been able to jump start it and push start. so we can basically rule out the starter and the clutch switch. additionally, i have about 14 volts running through my alternator, so that's not the problem. i'm guessing it's a battery in need of a good charge. would a broken distributor be able to jump or pop start a car? i'm learning alot here.

 

[thrasherx]

Sorry it took so long to get back on this one. It turns out it was just a dead batter (which worked out to my advantage in the long run). However it looks like there was quite a bit of productive input regarding alternators. Maybe this thread was useful after all. Thanks guys!