80 280zx drops to 0 volts & dies when trying to start

[Guest HolyLlama]

Got my 280zx finally yesterday, parked it under a shed last night and today I put the battery on and attempted to drive it into the shop.It cranked fine and volts stayed around 14 after dropping slightly when starting. I stopped the turn off the car at the shop door and go inside to open the roll up door and when I got back and and tried to crank it up, it did nothing and the volts dropped to as far as the needle would go, like the battery had been disconnected. No lights, no ding when the door opened, nothing. Well, I got out and looked under the hood to see if the terminal might have jumped off, when I heard a click, like a switch had been flipped, door started dinging, lights went on in car and volts went back to normal, but the radio wouldn't turn on. Tried to crank it again, same thing, went through the process several times,finally I gave up and decided to do some body work instead. Gave up on the body work when it got cloudy and went to Autozone for some stuff. While I was gone, it started sprinkling and my dad went down to the shop cranked it up and drove it right in with no trouble, much to my amazement. Has anyone experienced this problem before?

[datsunlover]

Bad ground on the battry cable where it attaches to the post, or the body of the car. Could also be a starter problem (loose wire, bad internal conection) Check ALL the wires that go to the starter and battry, and make sure the comections are good.