Calling all you electrical gurus!!!

fightman80

fightman80

New member
So after a full overnight charge on my Motomaster Eliminator Battery, and it reading "Full charge", one turn of the key resulted in my battery power depleting to 2amps again! The truck didn't even turn over, no clicking, just a turn of the key, and nothing....not even dash lights!

Is this just the battery failing, or is there something else at work here?
Please note, I have recently returned the driving lights to my lower valance, which are dirrectly wired with a fusible link to the battery......could this be draining the battery??

I'm going to bring in the battery to the local Canadian Tire, and see if they can test it for me.....maybe it's just not holding a charge??

Another thing to note: When I removed the battery from the engine compartment, only one battery tie down was on securely...could it be the vibration which maybe killed the battery??

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
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Sounds like a dead battery to me. Have them load test it, that will tell if you lost a cell or two. As long as your lights arent on there shouldnt be any kind of draw that would kill the battery.
 
Sounds like a battery failure. I don't think it'd be related to vibraion and deffinitely not getting drained from lights that are not on. Get the Optima Yellow top and never worry about your battery agian. I swap mine out every 2 yrs for free since they have a 3yr warranty. I run my battery really hard with a winch, aux lights and two amps. I'll swear by these batteries.

I'd also take a look at your fuses and battery/engine grounds.

Good luck man
 
Alright, so I had 4 out of 6 cells that had frozen. The store ended up giving me a replacement for $79.00 (instead of $113.00 reg. retail), as the battery had passed it's 2 year replacement warranty.

I got it home, put it in the truck, turned the key....heard a tick....and then nothing. Checked the battery voltage again....2.0v??? Can something be draining my battery that quick by starting it up?

I also took the liberty to take some pics of the battery connections for you guys.

The 1st, is the ground to fender wire, covered with dirt and oil from my oil spraying....could this be causing an issue?

P1120297.jpg~original


The 2nd, is the positive connection, with some green corrosion on it:

P1120296.jpg~original


What do you guys think???
 
That(pic 2) looks pretty gungy. Clean both post connectors at the battery. clean the wire to connector. Check the condition of both positive and negitive wires. The clicking sound (you said they replaced the battery) usually signifies a bad conection somewhere. You can(after cleaning everything) try using a jumper cable to ground the battery if the clicking continues. Do the headlights dim right away?
 
Check the voltage with the battery disconnected from the truck and see if it's still at 2v. You can try to unhook your driving lights to rule them out of the equation, something would have to be very fubared to drop a brand new battery to 2v with a crank of the key.
 
YotaZach85 said:
Check the voltage with the battery disconnected from the truck and see if it's still at 2v. You can try to unhook your driving lights to rule them out of the equation, something would have to be very fubared to drop a brand new battery to 2v with a crank of the key.
Click to expand...

The voltage reading is with it out of the truck, it's reading 2v. The lights are disconnected right now, as I thought the same thing.....could there be something else, that is dropping the juice so quick???
 
My positive connection to the battery looked similar to yours and it seemed like it was on there really well. When I went to crank the key it just clicked and the lights were VERY dim. Hardly picked up any voltage. I cleaned it really well and still the same thing. I finally to a wire brush on a Dremel to it and it made the appropriate connection.
 
My best guess is the battery is not being drained, it's being killed, and bad. If you hooked that battery up to stadium lights they would at least give you a good flash before dying, and the voltage would be around 10 not 2. You have managed to kill most of the cells in it again I would say.

Definitely clean things up in there and if it were me I would replace the battery terminals just in case, they are cheap anyways. I would also check the ground wire.
 
Alright guys, so Newbie mistake!!! After all the trouble shooting, I figured out it was my newly re-installed driving lights causing the short! When I installed them into the valance, I screwed them in, and ended up touching the back of the light (which is metal, and has the positive wire connected to). I also had one ground wire that had been partly cut with my sidecutters when I was cleaning up my zip ties, from hanging up the excess wire.

After fixing those issues, the truck started up like a charm! Crappy thing is, I ended up buying a new battery today. I did need one anyway, as 4 of the 6 cells were frozen, and one side of the battery was actually bulged out.

Thanks for all the trouble shooting ideas, and well....sorry for wasting your time........
 
An easy check is to just run a ammeter (multimeter switched to ammeter) in series with the positive battery terminal and the positive wire. You would have seen an amp draw.
 
I don't have a multi meter.....but definately right!
Click to expand...

Time to get one! :D


This is a great one on Amazon.com for $17 5/5 stars

Amazon.com: Equus 3320 Auto-Ranging Digital Multimeter: Automotive


Also next time get an optima battery. It will cost you $130 instead of $90 but it is worth it.

In the future I recommend troubleshooting you electrical problems by trying to isolate the issue. If you have a battery drain then disconnect everything that isn't stock: lights, stereo amp ect. Then see if it drains. Next reconnect one at a time.
 
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