No Start, No Click, No Dash Lights

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natural_nativ

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I know this is probably covered somewhere, but form my searching it looks like each case has different issues.


I was checking my oil pressure manually last night. I don't think that is related, but I figured I would mention it. Got in this morning and the parking brake light was dim and it would not turn over.


Hooked it up to another vehicle with jumper cables. It turned very slowly and then fired up. I let it run for a little bit on the cables, then disconnected them and shut it off after letting it run another few minutes.


Tried to start it up again and it had no power whatsoever. No dash lights, no starter click, no turn-over at all. I hooked the cables back up and nothing changed even with power from another vehicle.


I hope it is starter related, but from what I've read it could be a whole lot of things. I didn't think to check interior/headlights or the horn since I was on my way to work.


Just wanting to know where to start looking. And if that doesn't work what to do next and next and next....
 
Could be your battery or alternator. The alternator is pretty easy to test when the vehicle is running, and the battery can be easily load tested by any auto part store (or Batteries Plus) for free. My money is on one of those things.

If it was able to start when it was jumped, that tells me that either your battery was so dead that it won't hold a charge, or your alternator is going bad and unable to keep the battery charged anymore.
 
Chris said:
Could be your battery or alternator. The alternator is pretty easy to test when the vehicle is running, and the battery can be easily load tested by any auto part store (or Batteries Plus) for free. My money is on one of those things.

If it was able to start when it was jumped, that tells me that either your battery was so dead that it won't hold a charge, or your alternator is going bad and unable to keep the battery charged anymore.
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My thought on the alternator was that it stayed running fine after I took the jumper cables off. Wouldn't it die if the alternator was not charging the battery?
 
natural_nativ said:
My thought on the alternator was that it stayed running fine after I took the jumper cables off. Wouldn't it die if the alternator was not charging the battery?
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Not necessarily. It might have stayed running for 5 or 10 minutes, then died, but I'm not sure how long you let it run for after it was started.

Can you turn on the radio, headlights, or anything else as it sits now?
 
Chris said:
Not necessarily. It might have stayed running for 5 or 10 minutes, then died, but I'm not sure how long you let it run for after it was started.

Can you turn on the radio, headlights, or anything else as it sits now?
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I'll have to check the other electronics when I get home later. All I know is that there was nothing lighting up on the dash when I turned the key on. No park brake light or anything. The radio was working while it was running, but I didn't think to check afterwards.
 
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natural_nativ said:
The most confusing thing for me is that I've never had any type of electrical/battery/starter issues at all up to this point.
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They can just happen suddenly with no warning whatsoever. That's what happened to me when my battery crapped on me.

The battery is indeed the first thing to check. They have to do a load test on it though to know for sure if it's good or bad.
 
Imapepper said:
How old is your battery?
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I'll have to check that when I get home as well.
I just got this jeep. It's a 97 2.5l. The battery terminals looked horrible when I got it so I popped them off the battery and cleaned them the best I could. It took a while to even get the cables off of the terminals. They were that corroded.
 
The battery should have a date stamp somewhere on it. Check that, but also, if those terminals are as bad as you say, you really ought to just get new terminals in general... seriously.

I'm 99% certain this will end up being a batter / terminal / alternator issue.
 
Chris said:
The battery should have a date stamp somewhere on it. Check that, but also, if those terminals are as bad as you say, you really ought to just get new terminals in general... seriously.

I'm 99% certain this will end up being a batter / terminal / alternator issue.
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I've never swapped out terminals on any vehicle. Any idea of the level of difficulty/time needed for that?
 
Chris said:
It's very, very easy to do. Even a novice could do it:


You just need some new terminals like these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054T95ZS/?tag=wranglerorg-20
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Awesome.
I'm glad I've found my go to jeep forum.
I posted this same question to two other forums and haven't received any responses.
I'll become more active once I get this thing fixed up more and get some pictures.
Thanks for all the help. I'll come back to this thread and update.
 
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my guess would be battery or cables as well.

My Jeep died randomly 2 weeks ago and stranded me in a parking lot 1 mile away from home. I was getting enough juice to the dash and headlights but a single click and nothing. the symptoms lined up with a bad ignition switch pin but as I started doing some deeper troubleshooting found the starter to be the culprit. I also changed the 3 year old battery for good measures since winter is around the corner. After starter replacement she started right up. Moral of the story is you gotta troubleshoot and see where in the chain of electricals your voltage goes to 0.
 
natural_nativ said:
Awesome.
I'm glad I've found my go to jeep forum.
I posted this same question to two other forums and haven't received any responses.
I'll become more active once I get this thing fixed up more and get some pictures.
Thanks for all the help. I'll come back to this thread and update.
Click to expand...

This is definitely the best forum out there for the 97-06 TJ, so I'm glad you found it!

I look forward to the update, don't leave us hangin'!
 
I parked my Jeep, came out 20 minutes later, and it was deader than Abe Lincoln. No lights, no clicking, nothing. It was as if the battery was gone. I cleaned the connections at the battery, an it fired up.
 
Andy5150 said:
I parked my Jeep, came out 20 minutes later, and it was deader than Abe Lincoln. No lights, no clicking, nothing. It was as if the battery was gone. I cleaned the connections at the battery, an it fired up.
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This ended up being the exact cause of my problem. I'm planning on changing out the connections first chance I get.
 
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