fightman80

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!

James Woods

iTrader: (1)

You may have a full charge but if the battery is bad, as soon as you load it, it will drop to below 10 volts and wont have the amperage to start the truck. If you have a DMM, you can drop the battery in and have someone turn the key on while you watch the voltage drop, if the battery is good, you will want to check your cables and make sure there is no corrosion or breaks inside the wire. An easy way to check for draws on the battery is to get your DMM and set it to amps connect the positive cable to the battery and clamp the DMM to the negative post and to the negative cable with the cable disconnected from the battery and wait for about 30 min. and read how many amps are drawing, then start pulling fuses to see what drops and that gives you your draw. By the way, how old is your battery?

fightman80

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?

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

What do you guys think???

GranVille-4crawler

uhhhhh yeah.... clean that thing.... my guess is you have a turrible ground connection

fightman80

Would that cause my battery to drain??

fightman80

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........

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

It doesn`t hurt to upgrade your ground cables and keep them clean along with the positive cables.

With that much oil it is soon going to be time to change the alternator . They just love being soaked in oil!!

fightman80

Sorry, I forgot to mention, that I took some of the advice I was getting from everyone, and cleaned up all my grounds, and other connections. They were actually in good shape, with just a little bit of green corrosion on some of the copper. As for the alternator, it's far enough away from the the fenders and firewall, so it stays dry!