My buddy has a 87 Trans Am with a 5.7L L98 engine. His car has been acting like the alternator is dying for a while and it finally went out on him a few days ago. He made it home, but I had to take him to get it rebuilt. So we get it rebuilt, I jump him and let it run for a little bit, and it's good. It starts right up after turning it off. He didn't go anywhere that day, and went outside the next day and it won't start up. So we figure he just didn't run it enough the day before so I jump him again today, and we drive to the gas station about 5 miles away. It makes it, but it isn't holding charge for crap. We don't even turn it off because we want to get back to his house. We get back, he shuts if off, I try to jump him again because it won't start up by itself, and no luck. It won't even start up when I'm connected to it. We try a few times and the jumper wires are hot as hell, so we give up.

Any idea on what it is?

 

Sulfated battery.

 

yea what he said, or your alternator isnt charging it, like the voltage reg is crap er somethin, 350s dont take much to run.... what's the volt gauge look like while it's running?

 

bad battery or bad wiring maybe a draw somewhere

 

The volt guage is normal if I'm hooked to it and not running, and just barely above red when it did run.

 

Take the battery and alternator to Autozone or Advance and have them tested...

 

so the alternator is either dead or hooked up wrong then, it should be at 14.4 V running and 12 V not running, and being that it has died so many times i'd say the battery's toast too

 

Yeah we took his battery down to Advance and it was toast, he just bought a new one.