# No spark after stupid mistake - Please Help



## bufferedaspirin (Jun 5, 2010)

Hi, I'm new to the forum 

I know this is a long post, so the important stuff is in bold.

I really did it this time :newbie:

Had a dead battery on my car. So I put a charger on it. I set the charger to the 6 amp setting and let it charge overnight.

When I went to take the charger off and try to start the car, it wouldn't start. No lights would even come on. I double checked everything, and I realized that *I reversed the polarity on the battery charger (and i left the battery hooked up to the car's battery cables). *Big mistake.  I really feel totally stupid and I feel like this is the biggest mistake I've ever made. I feel terrible and I'm constantly second guessing myself now.

I have now come to the realization that I could have possibly fried everything electrical in the car: ICM, ECU, whatever. *(By the way, the car is a 1992 Nissan Maxima SE, DOHC, VE30DE Engine, Automatic Trans)*

The battery is now fully charged, and when I turn the key to acc on the ignition, everything in the car lights up like normal. The automatic seat belts move as fast as they always have. When I try to turn it to ignition, the starter motor will turn and the engine will crank, but it will not start. I took out an ignition coil and tested whether or not I'm getting spark to the plug, and it *seems like I'm getting no spark.*

*My question is this: How do I troubleshoot this problem? How do I figure out what I need to replace? I've never worked with electrical stuff on cars before, so its completely new to me.* So far, I've taken out the ignition control module and tested that with a multimeter according to the procedure in the manual. It SEEMS like the ICM is dead (but I'm not sure I trust that I was measuring it properly, nor do I trust my multimeter).

I would greatly appreciate any help or suggestions that the fine members of this forum could contribute


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