I'm asking for suggestions before I start looking in the wrong place, which I have a tendancy to do.

My '95 6-spd has been sitting for awhile(2 months), the last few weeks on a battery tender. I noticed that it never went above 80% charge(green light still flashing, new battery this spring), but didn't think much of it, my boat battery does the same thing(also a new battery this spring, connected to a tender).

Lifted the hood to disconnect the tender(now flashing red), the plan being to take her out for some fresh air and fresh fuel. First thing I noticed was no engine compartment lights, opening the driver's door with no interior lights confirmed it, as did a turn of the key, absolutely no power to anything, whatsoever.

My first thought is a bad battery. My question is would that be the most likely place to start? And would a power pack start the car? There is no evidence of anything disturbing the car, no mice, no other hands on her, nothing. Any suggestions would really be appreciated.

 

I have posted many times about how lead acid batteries work. Let me type it yet one more time. Car batteries don't like sitting for long periods (4+ wks) doing nothing, even disconnected. They self discharge up to 1% each day. When car batteries discharge, lead sulphate collects on the plates and charging converts lead sulphate back to lead and sulfuric acid. At first the lead sulphate is soft, but left sitting, it gets hard and once hard, it insulates the plates and won't convert to lead/sulfuric acid. This condition is called sulfating and fully sulphated, you now have a door stop. If you connect a battery tender (commercial product name) the tender charges the battery when it detects a 10% drop in charge and then shuts off. Your battery will then always be ready for use and it will have a normal lifetime. Letting it sit reduces its amphour capacity due to hard lead sulphate on the plates and this shortens the life or completely ruins the battery.
It appears your battery is sulphated so bad your tender can't charge it up and it doesn't have enough capacity to even turn on the interior lights. If you jump start your engine, you will discover that you can't restart it, confirming that you have a ruined battery. Now it is also possible that you have high leakage current that the tender can't supply current to which will also not allow the tender to charge the battery up. You can prove this by disconnecting the ground cable on the battery and using your tender to charge the battery up. If your battery does get charged up, then you need to look for the leakage current. My money is on a ruined battery.

 

I'd remove the battery and have it checked. Any place that sells car batteries will usually check it for free.

 

Thanks for the explanation. Problem is at least temporarily solved. I've checked, but cannot find anything drawing down, int. light left on, anything else. I did take it in. It was put on one of the new style chargers, and tested multiple times. Reinstalled, the car then run for a couple hours, hooked back up to the Tender, and now appears fine. Obviously need not be taken for granted, but I may have gotten lucky, for now. Thanks again.