Oldsmobile/Buick Repair: 97 olds 88 power loss, positive cable, baking soda

Question
97 olds 88 3800 v6 engine. car will lose all power intermittently. i.e driving down the road and everything goes dead. pull over jiggle the positive battery cable and the power will come  back. until last night, car was running, put it in reverse and it died. no power. tried to jump start, nothing.  about a month ago, i had to replace the alternator, it was whining  badly and replaced it. all seemed fine, then car died again driving down the road. checked positive cable and it was loose at battery, tightened it up and it has been fine for about 3 weeks. now car is deead and wont take a start. could the alternator going out have damaged something else? the battery seems fine, but not getting the power needed to start veh. any help?

Answer
Hello Chris,
You say the battery is fine. The alternator has nothing to do with it starting. It is only there to replace voltage used from the battery, after the engine is running.

Sounds like you have had several instances of loose connection at the battery.
I would remove the cables from the battery, and make sure all contact surfaces where the cable and the battery posts touch, are clean to bare shiny metal. Make sure it is not shiny corrosion.
I remove the bolt, and peel the rubber coating back over the lug, and clean both sides with a wire brush, and running water. Works better than any chemical cleaner or baking soda, although I use that first.

And if you have the battery that has both side and top posts, be sure to load test it at the posts that your vehicle uses. I have had those batteries that would test great at the top posts, but would not cary the load from the side posts, and vice versa.
You could also not jump start to the top posts. Power would just not go through, due to a bad internal connection in the battery.

Then make sure the cable itself isn't corroded to a bad connection where the battery lug is crimped to the cables.

And lastly, make sure there is a ground wire between the engine or battery, and the firewall.

Now,,,,bad connections could cause damage to the alternator, by causing it to charge max, trying to push power through those same bad connections.

Van