I have a 88 yota that has a less than 3 month old battery on it and a brand new started I just now put on it and the battery is weak is my problem the alternator?

 

I dunno.

When the truck is running what is the voltage at the battery? Should be about 13.9-15.1v (temperature dependent). http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-b.../2onvehicl.pdf If the voltage is below that, yeah, probably the alternator.

Don't have a multimeter? No excuse for that! http://www.harborfreight.com/7-funct...ter-90899.html

 

You might try disconnecting the battery while the engine is running.
If the engine dies or tries to the alternator is probably bad

 

Yikes! That might have worked back in the 50s, but with a modern engine that will probably destroy some of the electronics.

You can try it anyway just to see what will happen, or you can use the multimeter you should have anyway. Your choice.

 

Don't do that. The battery acts as a filter on the alternator output and keeps spikes and surges to a safe level. Removing the battery has the potential of damaging your electronics (ECU, etc.)

Do what scope says and measure the voltage with a multimeter. It's safer and a much more informative test.

 

The 84-88 trucks are bad about letting the key come out and the Ignition not being in the fully Off position. One possibilty is that you are leaving the key switch in the Acc position which leaves the clock and other circuitry on. I have seen that problem. You still need to push the button on the column to let the key come all the way back to the Off position.

 

I pulled the battery cable loose like I've always been taught to do and it died and I hooked it back up and it slowly turned over Im replacing the alternator now the idiots at Oreilly gave me the wrong one

 

I stopped using O"reily for that same reason.
I have an HVAC company and used to service there AC units
The manager at my store seemed to have a bad attitude although he did hook me up with a battery once for 20%off. Only lasted about 6-months.

Sounds like you about got her going anyhow:

 

the clock light is supposed to go off?? i wonder if that explains my battery issues.

yes, you can pull these ignition keys out at anytime, but the p.o. tweaked the column button on my rig, so i never had to push in the button... need to explore this further, thx for the idea.

moving on... pulling the battery while the motor is running is something that you do with cars that have generators, which would be applicable for vehicles that were made up thru most of the 60's... it's an advantage, not a liability, just don't do it with an alternator-powered vehicle.

the other plus with generator-powered cars is that you can push start a generator-powered vehicle even when the battery is completely dead, because there is residual magnetism in the generator, that will create enough spark to fire off the engine.

 

Hello osv.. The clock should go off when the ignition is completely off. If you got a strong battery and drive it daily, it will start the next day. If battery is weak or sits one or two days it will need jump started.

 

Seriously? How could a clock keep time if it turns off?

On my '94, the DISPLAY switches off, but of course the clock keeps pulling power. Somewhere less than 5ma. Add in a milliamp or two to keep the radio stations stored. An average car battery has about 44 amp-hours, so 5-10ma would run that battery flat in ... 6 months to a year! (The self-discharge rate is faster than that, so if your truck is going to sit for many months disconnecting the clock still won't make any difference.)

Don't worry about the clock and the radio.

 

I think Terry meant the display shuts off.

Talk about bad habits pulling the battery cable off a running engine

These days a decent multimeter can be had pretty cheap.No excuse to not have at least one.

Poor electrical system can be from almost anything .

Poor corroded connections .

Old brittle wires

Battery never being charged .

Then what is the first thing go get a cheap rebuilt alternator or several then when that does not work replace a battery .

When your battery terminals are so corroded or the belt is so glazed it can`t help but squeal all the time.

 

Yes I meant the display or you would be resetting the clock each time, same with radio presets. With the display off you can let a truck sit for long periods of time.

 

One of the strange things It seems Toyota vehicles have a habit of draining batteries.


I can only go from all the ones I had pretty much your normal clock and radio presets

In my case what seems to have pretty much cured this habit .

Was when I up graded the the ground cables .

Sure I am still good for having a battery go dead after 6 months or so and freeze.

It did cure the going dead in 2 weeks or so Why I have no idea.

 

that's the same symptoms that i've been having, thx.

i confirmed that using the button on the column will allow the ignition to turn off all of the way, and the clock light goes out then.

there must be something besides the clock light, that's activated by the key being left in that wrong position.

in the past, i've tried pulling the ground cable at the battery, and checking the current flow with an ammeter, but there wasn't a significant current draw... it might be intermittent.

 

Did you ever check the voltage? If you really don't own a multimeter cut the headlights on while it's running, then shut the engine off. If the lights get dimmer the alternator is working. If they stay the same or get brighter the alternator is bad.

 

With the key still on the Acc position, I too wonder if other things still add to the battery draining. Even if the stereo is off, just having power to it may add to the drain. There is always some power just to keep the memory of time, station presets active. I cant think of what else would be needing power, but maybe just the fact that power is flowing is enough to drain the battery.

I have dealt with this twice and know of two other members that have had the same problem and it was not being shut completely off. Now out of habit before I get out of the truck, I just make sure my clock didsplay is off.

Swapping out the Ignition switch is easy on these trucks. I can post pictures on how to do it if needed. Not sure what is buggered up on your push button. I will look at one of my columns later today and see if that section is easily swapable.

If I understand it right, Beckley Arney is a vendor for Toyota and is great quality parts. I see they sell new Ignition set for a very reasonable price on ebay.

 

at one point i pulled a fuse underhood that killed power to the radio circuit, but the battery still self-discharged... i've now swapped in a backup battery, just to see if it's battery-related, but the truck hasn't been parked long enough to test it.

if turning the ignition all the way off fixes the issue, it'll be good enough for me.

this thread has a link to an ignition switch(not lock) for $94 :-0 all that i could find on rockauto was the tumbler/key replacement, not the actual switch itself.