Is this the right setting to seee if something is drawing power from the battery ? With everything off this is what I'm getting yet as you can see from above the battery voltage drops pretty quick over a 45 minute period. I think my truck murdered its last battery now this one is getting assualted. Distributors working

 

If you are trying to measure current draw, your meter will need to be in series with the battery, meaning like this (bat post)----(black meter lead) (red meter lead)----(battery cable). Basically whatever the current draw is will have to pass through the meter so that it can measure it. Now, notice on your meter it says 200mA MAX fused. There is a fuse in the meter that can handle 200mA, you might end up blowing that fuse if your battery is draining that fast. The meter does have a 10 Amp setting also, you can move the red lead over to that DC10A plug, but I don't know if that one is fused on your meter or not (also have to flip that dial down to the DC10A position). Is your ignition all the way back in the OFF position?

EDIT: Wanted to clear up what I said about how to connect the meter in series, you need to remove one battery cable from the batter post, and insert the meter between battery post and battery cable, that would put the meter in series.

 

Most parts stores test batteries for free. Voltage won't tell you much about the battery health it's the amperage that you need to measure. Do NOT test amperage with your 10amp meter. You can't measure 650 amps with a 10amp max max meter.

 

ah , I just slid the posts on and read it straight from the terminals , I need to make the volt meter part of the circuit. Thank you so much

 

make sure that the ignition key is in the "off" position, not "acc" position, if something is hooked up there it could be draining the battery

 

so after you guys helped me with the volt meter thing , I pulled every fuse in the cab with no real change in voltage , it went from 40mA to 38

I started unplugging things and after i unplugged the hot from the alternator it went to zero

funny the alternator is like the newest thing under the hood. I going to look at the one on my 2003 Tacoma and the FJ and see if either of those will work rather than throw another autozone one in

anyway wanted to say thanks and post what I found to maybe help someone out in the future

 

See if you can find a used Toyota one. The remand autozone/orileys/etc tend to fail quickly. Same with their starters.

 

I've had bad luck with reman alternators too. The diode plate always goes out. Is there a shop nearby that rebuilds alternators and electric motors? If so, take it to them, they would do it right.

 

Shorted Diode in the Alternator at least one maybe more.

That should be the first thing one checks