Banging my head against the wall on this one......

1. Was having problems with my truck starting, doing the 'click' thing.
2. Then, it had problems starting - slow to turn over, killing my batteries in about 3 or 4 tries.
3. The batteries are: 1 x optima red top & 1 x optima yellow top. You would think with this kind of power, you wouldn't be killing them at all!
4. Put new starter in. All connections look good.....

!!!! Same problem !!!! turn it over 3 or 4 times ---> dead batteries.

The truck runs great when it starts. Push starts super easy. WTF

Any help would be great.
-jeff

 

First check your charging voltage.

Then check your connections with a DMM during cranking. Put the voltmeter between the positive battery terminal and the engine block, and have a helper crank the engine. Anything more than about 0.3V and your ground wires and terminals need replacement.

Checking the hot side is a bit more fun, you'll need jumper wires, but do the same for the positive wire, from the starter to the positive terminal. Or you could use 2 DMMs and subtract to find the positive side drop.

 

I'd put money on one (or both) of your Optimas being shot.

My brand new Optima Red-Top never even came close to a comparable CCA battery from Wal-Mart. Go figure.

 

Both are brand new & good. I've had them tested at the place I bought them & again at a shop....... still banging head....

-jeff

 

Swap in the battery from your wifes car while she's not looking.

Mine was brand new, and wouldn't cold crank a mild hi-po VW engine after a few minutes. Just saying, it's an easy thing to rule out.

 

Have you checked your grounds? I had a bad ground that kept draining my battery.

$.02

 

Grounds are good. The batteries are not slowly draining, they are being drained in a matter of seconds......

 

There could be something causing a constant drain on your battery or just some bad batteries. Have you hooked a DMM to your battery terminals and watched the voltage drop across the meter while you crank the engine?

 

How's your alternator output?

 

Alternator is good as far as I know. Starter kill batteries even if they have been charged in the house overnight & installed into the truck before starting.

-jeff

 

Check the voltage at the starter:
- http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri...shtml#EasyTest

and trace back to the source of the voltage drop. Likely you have a bad wire or connection some place. The added resistance causes the starter motor to turn over slower than normal. With a series wound motor (like the starter), the slower it turns the more current it pulls out of the battery. More current = dead battery faster.

Check both power and ground connections, you need both to complete the circuit. For a quick test, clamp a jumper cable between battery + and the starter power lug and even try another cable from the body of the starter (a bolt or something) back to the battery - terminal. I had a similar problem in my VW, a jumper from the battery - to the engine block made it work perfect, so I added an additional ground cable to mimic the jumper cable.

 

could be possible you got a bad starter when you replaced it