Bizzarre Battery Issue?

My car has a power antenna which was stuck down, so I pulled on it with a pair of pliers. Something inside of the antenna snapped and it pulled all the way out like a normal antenna. However, this caused the antenna motor to run continuously until I cut the three power wires going into the antenna, which also caused the antenna fuse to blow.



Five minutes later I started the car and drove it some place, turned it off, started it again and drove home, no problems. The next morning I went to drive it for work and it was completely dead - no crank, no lights, nothing.



I replaced the fuse that blew, and still nothing. I suspect either my battery is going out - it’s age and brand are unknown, it came from another car, or the negative connection is loose because it has a very cheap clamp on it. I have not tested the battery yet.



Here is the strange thing. I went to jump it last night and before I could connect to the live car, I noticed that when the positive cable ONLY was attached to the dead car battery and I was holding the other three cables in my hand, the dome lights came on. When I pulled it off, the lights went out after a second. Put it on - dome lights came on.



How in the world is that completing the circuit? Is the battery discharging the ground through me or the air? What could this possibly mean??

My guess the two events are not related.

BTW I would guess what snapped was a plastic rod the raises and lowers the antenna. Personally I would have it fixed. That is what we did with my wife’s car.

Your positive battery cable clamp is bad. Your battery is not dead. When you put the jumper cable on the positive clamp, it squeezed the clamp onto the post enough to make contact.

I agree with Tardis. When you connected the positive battery cable, it disturbed your positive battery clamp enough to make contact. The power antenna issue is unrelated, especially if the fuse was blown/pulled. Clean and tighten (replace if necessary) your battery terminal clamps and all should be well. Of course the battery could be failing too, who knows…

If you haven’t noticed thus far in your time on this Earth, life likes to f#$k with you like that. At least mine does :slight_smile:

as long as you are futzing around with wires, bend back each of the antenna leads for now, and tape them off with eletrical tape to keep them from shorting to the body again.