On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 06:58:13 -0500, micky
wrote:

**I also bought a new battery, but it's cleaning it that made it work
fine, until months later, I left the headlights on all night. Jumped the
battery and ran the car an hour but it still wouldn't start the next
day. I had to crawl underneath, take the cable off, clean everything
and put it back. Until the next time I left the lights on.
Eventually I learned, even in good clothes, to just stick my arm
underneath, grab the battery cable and pull it back and forth, rotating
on the starter motor stud, once or twice, and then the car would run fine
until the next time I left the lights on.

This sounds like the nut was loose that held the cable on. I'm never
quite sure how much to tighten nuts but it was pretty tight. It's
mostly that I had a lot of leverage pulling on the cable 3 and 4 inches
from the pivot point.

And the mechnanics who changed the starter twice should have known how
tight to make the nut (At least the dealer said he changed everything
twice. When I moved to the city my brother was in, 3 years later, a
year after he left the army, the dealer was out of business!)

I thought about changing the battery cable for one that might not be so
touchy, but instead I found a buzzer that buzzed if I left the
headlights on. That prevented both the ongoing problem and the first
day's dead battery. Problem solved.

Do you all think a different battery cable might have worked better?