ImportSport

A few weeks ago I put up a small post about my engine overheating and leaking coolant. Since then everything is in proper working order.

A friend was stuck in the parking lot at work and asked me to jump start his car. Well I didnt take the time to look at his battery connections and his car took a while to finally turn over.

It turns out that he did not ground the negative clip to his cars frame but placed it on his negative battery terminal instead. Once his car was running he went home and I sat in my car for a few minutes talking on the phone before heading home.

At this point I looked down and realized that my car was overheating. "GASP" I thought what could have caused this... Well it turns out that my fan was not coming on which caused the idling engine to over heat. I also noticed that my car was leaking coolant after the overheat.

When I was jumping the car, the fans got shorted out change the fuse and check the AC and thankfully they are up and running again. BUT the bad news is that when the car overheated a small hole opened up in one of the coolant lines behind the alternator.

The end story is that it was all just a series of unfortunate events but it was still a progression where jump>overheat>leak

Just thought I would share this story since it was just so odd.

Slows2k

I don't think the jumper cables caused the fan fuse to blow. There is no difference electrically in grounding the cable at the neg battery terminal versus the engine block.

I think it's more likely one of the fan motors is going bad and that's the cause of the blown fuse.

The battery is fused seperate from the rest of the electrical system, the main 100A fuse in the under hood box.

HBtoS2K

There is nothing wrong with the way you jump started his car and that did not cause the problem.

MyBad

I agree that a car can be jumped this way but i don't advise it. My brother was the victim of a battery explosion because he connected the ground to the battery instead of the body/frame. It sparked and there was enough battery gas at the spark to cause an explosion.

Thank goodness his little acid bath landed on his clothes and not on his skin.

mikegarrison

Got to agree, it was not the jumpstart that caused your fan problem.

However, I've also got to disagree about the "there is nothing wrong with the way you jump started his car" comment. The reason you are supposed to connect to a negative body ground instead of the battery is to prevent possible ignition of gas leaking from the possibly damaged battery. Not a likely scenario, but no reason to chance it.