I hate to burst your bubble, but some (emphasis on some) anti-seize compounds have electrical insulating qualities. This could cause a problem in extreme duty situations (extreme cold, etc). I'd be willing to bet your problem is propably a bad ground connection, as everyone neglects the ground, untill it's too late. I've seen thick, shiny new cables run to the relay and starter and a corroded skinny gound wire hiding in the background more times than I could shake a stick at. Good luck, and let us know how you make out.

Dave

 

I know when I replaced the o2 sensor in my buick regal, the instruction said to "make sure you use AC part # blah" which was a conductive anti-seize.

I agree with argo. I had to jump my '85 until I replaced all the jumpers and got the battery good and charged on a long trip. I cut open the ground, and it had corrosion all through it. No wonder why it wouldn't start!.
Also, 80-86 300s use a clamp on connector in the middle to ground the frame. Need less to say, the way they are clamped on, they loose connection. I replace mine with two separate cables.

 

Hmmmm, no kidding.

I figured since it's got metal flecks in it and it's gooey it would be a decent electrolyte, and as long as I screw them down good and hard, how could they not be making contact?

She's been starting ok in 10 degrees and zero degrees, but tomorrow is going to be the real test.

I've got an 8:30am class, it's 2:30am right now, and I'm watching the temp drop like a rock. It's -8 degrees F right now, it was predicted to be -5 degrees F at 8am. Missed by a MILE. It'll probably be -13 or more at 7:50 when I attempt to start her up.

I'll let y'all know what happens.

Wish me luck.

 

That is what I thought myself. Then I found out. I think it must be something with the gooey stuff that makes or breaks a good connection..

good luck my man.

 

You, brother...a few points I learned in my stint working in garages. The best battery maintenance is throughly cleaning off the posts and terminal ends first. Use a terminal cleaning tool and then a baking soda paste. Wash the paste off throughly after letting it work. It the cables look bad just behind the ends, it may be prudent to replace them. A lot of people don't realize how bad the corrosion can get to the cables themselves even if the terminals are clean. Use a specific terminal protector spray to keep corrosion down. DO NOT use other things like anti-seize. They can do more harm than good. Make sure the terminals are well tightened before you sue the protective spray on them. Make sure the other ends of the cables are not badly corroded also. We forget sometime that each cable has two ends and both can corrode.

As to a booster, I bought one of the rechargeable ones with an on-board air compressor that go for around $90 everywhere but can be bought for as cheap as $40, like I got new at a swap meet. If you keep them charged as the manufacturers suggest, they work. Just because they have a name brand on them, doesn't mean that the internal battery was made by anyone else different than the generic one for a fraction of the price.

I rarely ever have battery problems with any of my vehicles by sticking to my battery maintenance regiment I explained earlier. If your charging system is working well and the belt is tight enough ( if it isn't the alternator won't spin fast enough to give a good charge and they won't always squeal to warn you) than as long as the battery is good (load checking is the gold standard) you should be ok if you take care of the connections.

 

What Mav said. Clean, bright connections are best. And corrosion does grow down inside the insulation. Thoroughly inspect all of the cables and terminals, not just the ones on the battery, all the way to the starter. You want them to be perfect or the next thing to it. Don't waste your time trying to repair them or stretch their life a while longer. They're cheap, just put on new ones and don't worry about them. Nothing worse than the surprise of not being able to start. It NEVER comes at a good time.

I have used spray-type battery stuff and it does work - until it gets scratched. And it does kind of make a mess. I found that dielectric grease works best. It is made for electrical connections. Clean the posts and terminals as mentioned, put a thin coating on every surface of the post and terminal (in the split and bolt holes, on the threads, everywhere) and then put on the terminal. I brush it around a bit after getting everything tight too. The stuff never hardens so if you put on jumper cables or remove the terminal you don't have to re-do it. Just rub or brush it around and you're good. No more corroded terminals - period. I actually put it on almost every connection I touch anymore. No more stuck lightbulbs, corroded screw terminals, stuck push on connectors, etc. You can get it at any decent parts house or electric supply. One tube will last a long time. Great stuff.

Dielectric grease and anti-seize compound are two things that if used right (they don't do the same things) will make working on your vehicle much, much easier. Especially if you are going to keep it a long time.

Also Mav said, keeping your alternator belt(s) tight is real important. They need to be quite tight. With a good battery and good maintenance starting troubles should be virtually eliminated.

By the way, other than old batteries whose time was up, the only bad battery I have had in a very long time was a DieHard. 3 years left on it's warranty. Warranty-schmarranty. (Yeah, give me another one of those, I want to do this again sometime.) I went to NAPA and bought the best one they have. No more Diehards for me. Like I said there is NEVER a good time to have a rig not start. DieHards used to be very good batteries. I think they're living off their reputation now. Nothing the same except the label.

 

I haven't been impressed much with diehards either. I think i am going to buy a exide orbital next time I get a battery. When I get a battery for my truck I generally goto the autoparts and buy the battery with the big CCA that will fit in my truck. I'm sure that isn't the correct way, but with 900CCA, I run 30 miles with headlights without have the alternator charging.

 

Sorry for not posting for a couple days. I've been up to my *** in work.

I was able to get her lit up at -13 the other day, but it was quite a struggle. I'm starting to think maybe I'm getting condensation or something.

Here's how it usually goes:
it's -10 or colder out, I light up the starter, and she turnes over and a few cylinders fire, then she stalls real quick. Then every time after, when I turn the key, she rotates real slow, one or two cylinders fire, and then she dies.

To get her started, the trick has been to feather the hell out of the gas pedal the moment that one cylinder fires. As long as I keep the RPMs up, I can keep her going. She's never had much of a high-idle in the cold, even when she was new back in '97. So she runs real rough while I work the pedal for a few seconds and the check engine light stays on. Then she seems to even out quite a bit (I still have to keep the RPMs around 1100 or so with the gas pedal), and then the check engine light goes off.

I suppose I'm probably barking up the wrong tree here, blaming the battery. The battery always seems to keep her rotating, but I tihnk if I could turn her faster, starting would be easier. When the temperature is zero or more, getting her started isn't bad at all.

I'm starting to think that maybe my ECM or some sensors are getting bad, and she has no idea exactly what the ambient temp is. She does some really neat things while I'm out driving, too, like when I'm coasting down a hill, I can hear the engine change its exhaust note from one note to another, back and forth. That happens about like 20% of the time when I'm coasting down a hill.

She's just getting old

 

Ah, so the plot thickens!! It is now sounding more like a fuel delivery problem. How long since this ride of your's had a complete tune up? I mean COMPLETE..plugs, wires, cap & rotor. Have you tried dry gas if there may be condensation in the fuel? It couldn't hurt. It could be anything in this category from worn out ignition parts (covered 2 sentences ago) to a weak fuel pump which is succumbing to the extreme cold. A weak ignition coil could be adding to the problem. Yes, they can get weak rather than just quitting altogether. My 4.9 has 146,000 on it and I'm the second owner. We've had bad cold here lately too and it always starts crisply. I know the battery is good and clean along with a good charging system. The plugs and wires are new along with everything else being ok. One fuel pump is new and the other was checked (dual tanks). You can't neglect anything like this or it will bite you in the butt when the weather turns nasty.

 

It might pay to change the fuel filter as well.

 

Now how did I miss that one? Thanks, Greensburg! If one W. PA boy falls asleep at the wheel, another picks up the slack.

 

Hehe. you have to do what you have to do..

However, I think it could be a temperature sensor not being able to work through its whole range, but i'd put a fuel pressure gauge on the fuel rail when it's this cold and check to see if the pump has pressurised the rail. Then I'd start it and see it the pressure is fluctuating...

 

i have a 1000cca and it fires everytime... i live in Winnipeg in Canada, and we just had a week of -40f, no BSing... i was so impressed when my baby fired.... but i found out the hard way that my ebrake cable freezes, and my accelerator froze open at about 3000rpm.
A not to anyone in cold temps, dont use syntetic in the 300, with the oil filter on the side the way it is, you lose all your pressure.. and it takes a while to come back. The scary thing is when you start your truck and its screaming at 3krpm, its intense.... i thought i was gonna have to buy a new truck.

 

I think any motor screaming at 3000 when you fire it up probably isn't very good! Mine won't build oil pressure until you kick it off of high idle. 2200rpms, 0 oil pressure = bad noises. But it'll still build pressure and run good! go figure.

 

I guess I lucked out with this one. Even with the cold that we've had lately, the engine doesn't even rap when it's started first thing. I'm pretty picky about what I put in my vehicles and use Castrol. Ever since Consumer Reports labeled Castrol as it lives up to it's advertising where no one else did in a test of oils several years ago, I pretty much swear by it. None of our three front line vehicles have less than 100,000 miles on them and virtually never break down (the F-150 and two Cherokees).