95 SHO Battery Problems??

[HazMatt]

The cell in my main battery died. I called my buddy over so I could rip the battery out of his Taurus GL and move my car to my garage. We moved it there, I gave him back his battery, and it has sat for a month.

I just got a battery a few days ago from my cousin out of his old Mercury Sable. I charged it overnight, slapped it into the car. I hopped in the car and put the key into the ignition, turned it forward once. My headlights came on, as well as my interior lights. Everything was fine.

I went to crank it over to start the car, and all power was immediately wiped. It felt like I blew a bunch of fuses or the electrical system. The only light that will come on now is the check engine light. Has anyone ran into this before? Is it just a battery issue or did I blow something?

Any help would be appreciated, this is an odd scenario for me.

 

[HazMatt]

I also thought I should note that when i do a "reset" by disconnecting both battery cables, once I put them back on, the same thing happens. I was somehow able to reset the car 3 time since this has happened, where it has returned to me my headlights, interior lights, etc, but 2 of the times I tried to turn the car over, and all the power went out. The 3rd time I hit only my manual headlights and it killed the power.

This isnt a slow winding power drain like most batterys. This is an instant magical loss of all power. Live to dead in 0.01ms.

 

[sperold]

Does your key move easily to the start position. My car did something similar and I had no dash lights at all until the key went all the way to start (eventually) after rattling it. Until then nothing, and the starter would engage on the way back from the run position.
Your key cylinder can do strange things.

 

[joesho_gb]

Well, if you were pulling the battery lines, you may have accidentally pulled one of the wires on the starter, and it's making contact with another terminal. The wires are so tight in there already, that when you start pulling and moving them, they can slide into one another.
Sounds odd, but I would climb under there and make sure the wires on the starter solenoid are tight and not touching each other.

 

[Toul]

Have you checked the voltage of the battery?

 

[HazMatt]

Turned out to be a loose battery ground cable. I just took em off, cleaned up, rebolted em, and it fired up. Thanks all.