History, my Corvette is a 98 with 15k miles and no upgrades, except a Optima Red top Battery. Search shows some problems with Optima Batteries but little else, here is my problem.
On certain mornings, car is a simi daily driver, especially when it is cold in Florida(below 40) the car will start and die and after two times it goes almost dead, like battery is gone, even shuts the radio off like a disconnect, or makes the solenoid on the starter click like a bad battery and will not start. Now here is the kink, I wait 20 minutes more or less, go back and try again, and it starts and runs like normal.
The other day I though that it had not been run for a week, so I started it and it ran fine, shut it off and said why not put the battery charger on it because wife was using it, connected the battery charger on it and it melted the wires on the charger, maybe charger had gone bad, I put volt meter on the battery and it show no short problems, maybe just bad karma or could a interment short develop in the battery???????
All Ideas appreciated

 

PM Bill Curlee. Not only is he a C5 electrical wizard, he also one of the nicest human beings you will every meet.

 

To quote Harry Callahan, "a mans got to know his
limitations".

Reading your post, you are better off taking the other
guys advice and letting an experienced tech examine
the vehicle.

First off you don't use a voltmeter to measure a 'short'
on a battery (unless you are referring to a short in the
internal cells - which would manifest itself as a lower
voltage reading - one of the possible causes).

Secondly, if the wires from the battery charger were
melted - that's a cheap *** charger! no well designed
charger will allow current carrying conductors to get
hot enough to melt the insulation. It means it lacks,
and/or the current limiting subsystem - failed to work.

Having said that, I would remove the battery and
get it load tested. While you're at it, clean the lug on
the battery cable, and check your primary ground for
good contact (translation remove/clean it).

Your charger cables melted because the current it
was carrying exceeded design margins (and a cheap
design to start with). Question is, why ?

You either have a really defective battery - or some
kind of intermittent short in the +12 volt high current
cabling in your car. To test that theory, remove your
battery & stick a high impedance ohmmeter between
red & ground, and jiggle some cables around to see if
you get a low resistance reading - that would be your
short - then examine the cable you moved for physical
damage (scraped insulation perhaps?).

It's more than likely an intermittent failure in a high
current path. You waiting 20 minutes, allows the cells
in the battery to recover and give you enough juice to
spool up the starter again.

Next time the starter solenoid is clicking, document
the voltage reading (pull it up on the DIC).

Or, follow the other guys advice, and let a veteran
tech take a peek at it.

 

Sounds like a bad battery connection. I would clean the terminals and cables and retighten.
If the battery charger cables fried, its probably because they got hooked up in reverse polarity. Use your volt meter to determine which lead is actually positive, not by the color of the ends (which could have been swapped). I have even seen negative side car battery cables that are red and people just assume.

 

MY gut on this is your throttle body. In cold weather, breather system oil solidifies and thickens in the throttle body, thus making the throttle motor act sluggish. In order to start in cold weather, air is needed as well as a heavier dose of fuel, no throttle plate opening, or one restricted by oil, not enough air, no start!. Try this technique, hold your toe slightly on the gas when cranking, see if it fires up. I've run into this on Fords, where oil puddles and congeals in the Idle air controller, making it stick and not allowing in air to allow it to start. If this is the case, a catch can is the cure. I've got a couple to install too, one Ford Escape, one Corvette!

John

 

Up date, I had the battery checked, and it was bad, no charge to replace it in the first 3 years.
Now refer to Business Education, thanks for all the help and not the put down, I happen to be very knowledgeable in the field of Electronics and Electricity, and even some auto repair, having taught it in my earlier years in vocational education. Now the symptoms with the car were so far apart, and fleeting that it could have been everything and everything, really not a real sign of a bad battery, well not really. I will have to agree with many, Corvettes can be very voltage sensitive, I have never had a problem with batteries or electrical systems, beyond easy diagnoses in other car, truck, etc, except my Mercury Optimax outboard and than took some time.

Oh yes I know my battery charger was not a cheap one I do not buy cheap one, but this one was 30+ years old.

Thanks for all who offered help

By the way this is my ladies baby, I just have to keep it running.