97 TD won't crank - troubleshooting steps?

[QuickTD]

Not saying all high CCA batteries are necessarily bad, but there is lots of junk out there. Just be wary of extremely high cranking amp ratings from physically small batteries. "Energizer" batteries from wal-mart suck especially badly, the CCA rating/size ratio is completely out of whack and the 1000cca model will stand up to diesel use for about 2 weeks...  

 I once resurrected an ancient interstate "mega-tron" battery that came to the shop in an old mazda pickup that we wrecked. The thing was stone dead and possibly frozen a couple times. I was desperate for a battery so I gave it a shot from the charger and stuck it in. The silly thing started my car (lincoln mk 7 turbo diesel) for at least 6 years after that, went through much deep cycling and went on to power something else after I took the lincoln off the road. Some people will tell you interstate batteries suck...

[jtanguay]

my brother works for a large battery company and can get reconditioned batteries for $25 a piece.  he says they usually get 1000CCA batteries (very big) in the pile, but they go pretty quick... he's keeping an eye out for me

i'm going to be relocating my battery to the trunk anyways, and so i don't really care how big it is.  I've also got a nice deep cycle marine battery with 700 CCA (its about 15% bigger than my current battery, but is still not as big as the 1000 CCA battery he's going to get me...)

i forget which brand the deep cycle battery is... i think it may be interstate but i will check later to confirm it  :wink:

[3beejay3]

Wellllll.............

I stuck a new battery in tonite and that did the trick :lol: go figure, it must be a VW thing 'cause I've never seen a battery just drop dead like that. Usually there's some slow cranking and some clicking in the starter...... at least with the other 20 times I've had it happen to me with other vehicles, gas and diesel :lol:  :lol:.

BJ

[Doug]

You are right about those Walmart energizers. I had one drop dead after what seemed like a good start on a cold engine. It went high resistance such that a high output battery charger could not push any current back into it.