Thread: Battery Relocation and Emerging Gremlins...

Wow, no responses on the old forum... it's just dead there now, so I'm reposting this here...

Ok, so I relocated the battery in my NX to the rear hatch area a few months ago, and now I'm having some electrical issues that may or may not have been caused/exacerbated by the battery relocation...

I used a Summit kit with the 1g or 0g that it comes with and two 150a breakers (one under-hood and one in the hatch). I left the under-hood ground in place but cleaned the connection points up, and I grounded the battery itself to a large bolt on the trunk-floor. The car started strongly and ran perfectly after the initial install. The battery I'm using is the Duralast WestCo clone.

Gremlins emerge:

Problem #1 - After a few weeks I begin to notice that if I leave the car parked for a few days the battery is dead... Hmmm... I changed no other electrical connections on the car aside from the battery relocation and I never had a drained battery prior. Now it's gotten to the point that if I even leave both breakers closed (battery connected) overnight, the battery will be dead in the morning. If I open one of them when I park, the next morning the car starts right back up as strong as ever. And then something else began to happen...

Problem #2 - The car now will intermittently not start. Sometimes I'll turn the key and it will start right up, nice and strong. Then other times it won't even make a sound... The car has power in that all lights are on on the dash, but I don't even get a click, like the battery is dead. Usually if i try it a few times it will start right up on one of the attempts.

The car runs and drives fine; I've noticed no stumbling or dimming of lights or anything else odd.

Thanks in advance,

Marco

Check your grounds. The one in the rear should be through the sub frame or thicker metal than just the floor. Scrape the paint off and use a nut and bolt to secure the ring terminal to the car. I use a little black or clear spray paint over the bolt on the inside and outside to prevent corosion.

Ok, here are some photos:

I attached all three cable ends that originally fed to the positive underhood battery terminal to one side of the underhood circuit breaker:



The positive cable then routes back through the car to the second circuit breaker in the hatch area:



The positive then routes to the battery (which has not been permanently mounted yet). The gound is routed to the pictured bolt, which seemed large enough...





You can see a tiny bit of corrosion, I think, on the ground... Could this alone be the issue? Is this not a good ground location?

Did you scrape the paint underneath the ring terminal? Is that another washer under the ring terminal? Scrape the paint around the bolt hole, put the ring terminal down first, than a washer. Use a washer underneath the car too so you get a nice sandwich effect. You can use a star washer in between the washer and ring terminal if you would like but usually is not needed with a nut and bolt.

Edit:
Try to get that heat shrink out from under the top washer so you get the most contact area as possible. If you have to get a smaller washer that fits just over the ring terminal.

squirlz has good ideas. Also I'd make sure your engine is grounded properly to the chassis. It is a very common problem to have the starter stop working or work intermittently because of a bad ground between the starter motor and the battery. Sometimes the starter motor to transmission bell housing mating surface is poor, but more often the engine to chassis grounds are bad. I would check them first thing. You should have one from the thermostat to near the driver's side frame rail in the engine bay as well as one from between the flexpipe and catalytic converter to the bottom of the chassis. This second ground is almost always missing, and the first ground mentioned is usually in terrible shape.

Well I found this to also be my issue. I went ahead and did a bolt though ground and worked a lot better. Meaning drill a whole on an inside body panel. Sand it down and bolt and nut down your ground. The tighter the better the ground.