Did I do some serious damage?

[Damo]

Ok folks, I stopped the other night to help a lady with her jeep. She had left her lights on and flattened the battery, I tried to jump start it but it didn't work. I didn't realise you shouldn't do this at the time because of the voltage of the jeep battery but I know better now.
Anyway driving home I noticed I had no radio or internal lights I checked the fuses and noticed I had blown 2 of them, the big 100 Amp one and a 10 amp one. The next morning my car would not run, it kept cutting out and the speedometer hand was flying up and down. I replaced the fuses last night and the car sounded sweet for about 10 minutes but then it started doing the same thing again, I can’t even move it 5 yards without it cutting out. Have I done some serious damage somehow? I know I did a stupid thing but I just want my baby back on the road.

[kevinod]

Doesn't sound good, I hope you haven't fried your ecu...

Try the diagnostic thing where you earth one of the MUT-II connector pins and the lights on the dash flash. How to here.

You could also try resetting your ECU, see if that helps?

[Muad_dib77]

wow, that sounds odd..

Please let's know how you get on Damo.

[gtoirl]

Sounds like you might off hooked up the cables the wrong way around. Have you tried disconnecting the battery for a while to reset the ecu?

[Damo]

Thanks for the advice guys, got my dad to pay me a visit and turns out I had damaged one of the relays slightly, he cleaned it up a bit and off she went. I thought I'd fried the ECU or something. We live and learn, I don't think I'll be giving anybody a jumpstart again in a hurry.

[CJ]

Just so people are aware (I'm not trying to be patronising here btw!), when jump starting, the leads should be connected directly to the battery terminals on the 'donor' car, the postitive lead is hooked up the positive terminal on the car to be started and the negative lead should be attached to a bare pice of metal on the engine or in the engine bay. Its not recommended to directly connect the negative lead to the flat battery,

CJ

[CByrne]

Aswell the batteries must be the same voltage. I learned the hard way in a previous car connecting to a Jeep with higher voltage battery, didnt earth it either (connected negative to dead car aswell), cables started smoking the car was worth, oh, bout a 100 quid, so needless to say I didnt bother fixing it!

[soc]

and the negative lead should be attached to a bare pice of metal on the engine or in the engine bay. Its not recommended to directly connect the negative lead to the flat battery,

CJ

Putting my electrical ignorance aside (;)).... why is that?

[CJ]

Putting my electrical ignorance aside (;)).... why is that?

I believe you get better grounding if you connect the negative terminal to an unpainted metal part of the engine or body, thats about as much as I know!

CJ