e36 completely dead after dead battery

[NintendoKD]

Ok, it all started after I picked up my e-36 at a friends house where it had been sitting in his garage for a while. The battery was dead and it took removing the lock fuse to open the trunk to get to the battery. After jumping it it ran a little rough "been sitting for a year" after putting fresh gas in the tank. I pulled out and parked it "didn't shut the car off" I pulled away and drove down the road to my house. On the way to my place the engine started to get hot "past midway" put it in neutral, turned the key off "all lights died at this point" and drifted off to the side of the road to wait for my buddy to hook up a tow strap and tow me home. the car moved fine and had to leave the window down because the battery was completely dead. Today, I put in a new battery and there is nothing, the fuse for e-locks has been put back, at first I thought it was the immobilizer but no go. To explain, I put the key in the ignition and nothing happens, no dash lights no blinkers no hazards, no headlights, no windows, no nothing. battery reads a good 13vdc with my DVOM. I am stumped been through most of the fuses with no luck everything has good continuity so far. On another note, typing without the use of your left middle finger is problematic, I have had to make a lot of corrections before posting this. In case you are wondering, I crushed in a pallet jack in an unfortunate moving accident.

thanks,

Nintendo

no one? nobody has any clue? brand new battery and it as if there is no power to anything except the trunk lights.

[NintendoKD]

nobody? anybody? seriously, I have no Idea where to go from here, I searched for similar problems but nothing quite fits the bill.

[323i E30]

Good battery + no power sounds like a wiring problem...

[110reef]

I don't have any useful advice for the situation that you are in, but you can jump your car without opening the trunk. There is a terminal post under the hood for that.

hth

[Brashland]

I don't have any useful advice for the situation that you are in, but you can jump your car without opening the trunk. There is a terminal post under the hood for that.

That's true, but I've had some times where it wouldn't jump from the front but only directly to the battery in the back.

[JDStrickland]

That's true, but I've had some times where it wouldn't jump from the front but only directly to the battery in the back.
That is not supposed to be true. If it is, then you have something seriously wrong with the car. Maybe not serious, but it should be obvious.

The terminal under the hood connects directly to the starter, if you cannot jump the car from under the hood, then you have something very fundamental that is in error.

Disconnect the terminal under the hood -- disconnect the negative post first -- and inspect for corrosion or other maladies there.

There is a heavy wire from the alternator that goes to the starter, then from the starter it goes to the terminal we are talking about, then it goes to the battery. If you cannot connect jumper wires under the hood and start the car 100% of the time, then you have something wrong with this wire.

Your mission is to find what is wrong.

[bimmah]

If you have an antitheft problem, ive seen where leaving the key in the on position for like an hour fixes it. But when that happened to me i still had power. Just no starter function. Heck its worth a try.