How Changing a Battery Cable Lowered My Idle

   One of the more unusual automotive experiences I've had since cutting down on the drinking. O.o

   To explain a bit: I knew the Pulsar would need bugs worked out of it sooner rather than later, considering most of it is still twenty years old. It's engine compartment is still filthy, the transmission came straight from a scrapyard with a starter still attached, the rubber is fossilized and... you get the idea. So it wasn't much of a surprise when it failed to start. It was somewhat irritating to take the battery and starter in for testing just to find out they're both fine. Which left.... the battery cable. Since no amount of cleaning had helped earlier, I picked up a new clamp and cable (you have to roll your own for this car, the local stores don't carry one quite like it pre-assembled).

   Imagine my surprise when the cold idle dropped from it's usual 1100 to 900. Now, I understand that a bad connection to the battery can cause some fairly wonky problems in a fuel injected vehicle, but this was irritating. I'd been having some problems with the idle just a few weeks ago and now this. It might explain why the idle was right on the money while the adjusting screw was completely backed off and the ECU cranked down completely.

  The new clamp has also started slowly turning black, which is a good sign that one or both (or all three) ends of the negative cable have also built up resistance due to corrosion. Back to the parts store.

(The next day, the Olds lost it's brakes. Today, the badly welded center exhaust hanger in the Pulsar gave way and the exhaust hung an inch off the ground for about twenty miles. This shall henceforth be known as The Week That Everything Broke.)