(Car is a 2/95 prod. date 325i) I was all ready to congratulate myself on a difficult job well done - I finally have the clutch done and everything back together, but the car wouldn't start, battery was dead. So out come the jumper cables, I'd disconnected the battery partway into the project (before I was working up around the starter) so at this point I was thinking it just must have run down with the trunk light over a couple of days or something. Jumper cables installed, car starts up, but was running rough - really worried me, thinking it was something misinstalled, but running things through my mind there really isn't anything that will let you misinstall it. I know now it was running rough because it didn't have good electrical, evidently the electrical system isn't charging. Car runs fine with jumper cables, slowly dies without.
I think the electrical system dying at exactly the same time I did the clutch is too big to be just coincidental, but I can't think of anything that I did that would have any effect on the electrical system. I disconnected the battery, unplugged the O2 sensor - I didn't mess with the starter other than unbolting it. I took the fan off the front of the engine so it could swing down without hitting the radiator, and replaced the flex ducting to the alternator that had gotten brittle from heat and disentegrated - if anything, that should be a plus in the electrical system health. I jumped the car, so there's a small chance an electrical surge did something nasty, but that's a pretty big fluke that of the times I've jumped the car (or jumped someone else more often) that this one when I've been doing all this other stuff would be the one to kill it.
My one big concern (and only thing I can think of) is that maybe something between the back of the engine and the firewall was damaged in the process of swinging the engine down to get the transmission in and out of the car. Is anyone familiar with what all is mounted back there, or have any other suggestions as to what might have happened?
I'm in a rental car until I have this fixed, so getting it resolved has some urgency to it - plus, I'm driving a Saturn. Please, help me figure out what went wrong and save me from that POS!!!