Hey guys, I've got the top down because I was re-installing my wife's glovebox after replacing the blower motor and resister (now the A/C works! Finished that a couple of days ago). I just got the glovebox soft-open fixed and dropped the top to get some extra working room. Installed pretty easily, and I thought I would give the cutoff the duckbill thing another shot, so I opened the lid, took the engine cover off and messed with it for about an hour. The skies started to cloud up, so I told my wife to grab her keys and raise the top. She tried to start the car to raise the top, but it didn't have the juice. This happened the last time I tried to cut the duckbill off. I don't know if I'm touching stuff on the tranny tunnel I'm not supposed to, or if the hood is open too long for the battery or what. Anyway, I went and grabbed the trickle charger and hooked it up through the trunk access and I have tried to crank every hour since then,

Now the screen is black, NO SOUND when I push the start button, and a curious thing... the trunk is closed with the trickle charger block inside, and the tail lights, AND ONLY the tail lights are on. What it the heck?
Any ideas? I'm worried it's gonna rain, and we have no garage. What did I do?

 

Also, Is it bad to try and start the car with the trickle charger hooked up?

 

Gotta disconnect the battery and charge it up with a real charger, not a CTEK, for at LEAST 12 hours. Hopefully it will take the charge and maintain at least the 12.6 volts. If not........ New Battery!

 

Anything I can do about the top short of using tarps?

 

Try jumpers from another vehicle (not running) with a good battery to provide power to put the top up. Use the aux terminals in the boot.

 

 

I did this. Truck was running because there was not enough power without the truck running. Got it started, ran it up and down the road for about 30 minutes, filled up the tank at the local gas station, left it running while I was filling it.... you know, all the stuff you're not supposed to do. I guess it's time for a new battery.

This car is really quirky. Not enough power, so lets make sure the tail lights and the starter button are lit up??? Weird.

 

Lucas got ya.

 

I hear ya. A few months ago, I was working in the yard and I went into the garage and saw the XK Tail lights flashing dim. Then I noticed the headlights were on as well and I could not turn them off! The C-Tek was not attached for about a week (undriven) and it was not locked. Stupid me.... Opened the boot with the key and charged the battery (actually Autozone charged and load tested it because I thought the battery crapped out and it was 1yr old)
Haven't seen it do that again... sigh...

 

Geosnooker, my bad! I was in Cordova over the week end, if I'd have realized your location I could have stopped by & given you a hand. I was not really doing anything anyway, except tooling around in the vert.
I'm glad the lid is closed and she is running though it sounds like a new battery is in order.

 

Geosnooker,
if you put a battery on a trickle charge and crank it every hour; besides officially being a crank-yanker, you have killed the battery.
Basically a battery's life can be stated as the number of times it goes to zero. It was going to zero every time you cranked it.
Just a heads up, dont rely on that battery no more.

 

Everything said above plus keep in mind that with a bad battery even driving it around will not be sufficient to give the electrics the full juice they require. I reckon you did not have any way to test the battery voltage as that would have answered a lot of questions.