Hey guys, whats up? New to the boards, hoping I can find any known problems or possible solutions here. Making my first post a novel here

We have a 95 Maxima w/ OBD1 here in the family, and its been a really great car. It's got around 95k miles and ran good up until a month or two ago. My grandpa left the lights on overnight and killed the battery (again ), it sat for a week or so while we tried recharging the old one and eventually got a new one. Now the car won't start. The dash lights come on, headlights will turn on, and the fuel pump works. Turning the key to crank you hear 2 ticks of things being turned on, one being the fuel pump and the other I guess being the starter, but nothing ever happens. The starter doesn't clack as if the battery were weak or anything though.

We checked all the fuses and none appear to be blown, nothing smells fried either. Sometimes turning the key, the engine will hop a tiny bit like the starter was about to give it a shot.. but no go.

The day after a buddy of mine and I tooled around with it, gramps went out and gave it a shot again and it started right up without a hitch! He drove it around and brought it back, but it wouldn't start again after he cut it off. Said he thought it was running hot. The window switches have also stopped working, and the horn doesnt work. My guess is the radiator fan is out too. Said it ran smooth and everything else worked right though, so the EEC should be good still.

Before killing the battery he had been having some trouble getting it started occasionally, having to jiggle and retry the switch a few times before it would turn over. Thats the only prelude to this issue. The starter never gave him any problems before and it would always fire right up when it tried.

So, any ideas what might have happened? As soon as the great flood is done here, I plan to trace all the wiring from the headlights back and try to find if anything got hot and melted. But until then, any suggestions are welcome!

 

I don't have one of these vehicles, but I remembered seeing this while researching:

"Several problems (no-start, no A/C, rough running, etc.) can be traced to broken wires in the engine compartment where the harness bends near the right strut tower. (1995-97)"

From consumerguide.com
http://auto.consumerguide.com/auto/u...fm/id/2214.htm

Something to check, anyway.

-Ryan