I'm helping my son with his first car, 1995 Camaro Z-28, 6-speed, convertible. It sometimes starts easy, sometimes start hard,sometimes will not start at all. It seems to have a parasitic loss. I have had the battery tested several times and test as a good battery. While idling it reads 14.2 volts on my multi-meter. I searched for the parasitic loss and while engine not running the battery is pulling 13 to 14 milli-amps. I understand that's a normal figure. 25 to 50 milli-amps is suppose to be a parasitic draw.

While doing some other work I noticed that the passenger side air check valve hose was burned out and the check valve is stuck in the open position (strange no check engine light). The valve is blowing hot exhaust directly into the back of the alternator. Could this be why the battery is getting weak ???

 

Is time a factor? If he goes two days is it stone dead? You could disconnect the battery and see if the problem is the same.

Sounds to me like it could be a bad connection or bad battery cables. I assume by hard to start you mean the starter is cranking slowly. A draw test and a voltage drop test while the motor is cranking slow would be how a mechanic could tell what is going on.

 

When it's giving trouble starting does the engine shake a little after your you pull key back? Or does it seem like it wants to start but kinda just keeps turning over?

The way you make it sound it almost seems like it's doing what mine had done the last few months up until I changed the opti again.

 

any dash light on or blinking, best to start with cleaning some connections. the red plastic box on the passenger side fenderwell aka power junction box. take the wires lose and wire brush the heck outa the wire ends/connectors and look for any damage or signs of lose connection. do the same for the ground junction next to the power box. take the battery cables lose and wire brush them as well as the battery terminals. check your grounds on the alternator and around the exhaust leak. get that leak fixed. im assuming its the emissions a i r system or egr.

 

Doesn't "start", or the engine doesn't turn over at all? Are those three scenarios on a cold engine, or does it act differently with a hot restart? Blowing very hot air onto the alternator certainly isn't good for the life of it, but you're describing a loss as the car sits. How long does the car sit for it to have a problem starting? An easy test would be to disconnect the battery and see if you still have a problem after the same waiting period as before. If it's fine, then you can go searching for your draw. If the battery still doesn't have enough power to start, then it's losing it on it's own the longer it sits, and would need to be replaced.

 

Thank you to everybody for good advice. I spent the past few days checking and cleaning all of the grounds. I found that i had a broken ground on the driver's side of the engine. I think it might had been from the ignition. There was also a dirty, oily, greasy and frayed ground strap that was a bout a foot too long. I repaired the broken ground and replaced the ground strap with ground battery cable that is flat on both ends. While I was at it I replaced the little battery cable bolts from the cable. Autozone said the battery was good but O'Riely across the street said the same battery was bad ??? So I replaced the battery also, it was almost 4 years old. It's been 3 days now and still starts up strong. I hope that solved the problem. Again a big thank you to everybody.

 

I forgot to mention, I pulled out the air check valves and did away with the whole air pump system. No check engine light !!! The engine bay looks a bit cleaner now that those hoses, pipes and air pump is gone. I closed off the exhaust manifold with some steel plugs.