Battery problems

itllmakeit

itllmakeit

New Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2005
Location
Okinawa, Japan (camp foster)
I have a 78 chevy and the battery wont hold a charge. I found that the positive battery lead was resting on the headers and melted through, I fixed it and thought I fixed the problem. Now the battery is dead again. The alternator is good. Starter is going bad but will work most of the time. Does anyone know of any common problems that may cause my battery to drain as it sits?
 
Yeah, if you let them sit discharged for long periods of time they'll sulfate and basically become shot. As was said, you can have autozone test it...but it has to be charged first.
 
you can do a "do it yourself test" too. If, when charged, you take off the positive cable, touch it back to the post, if you get a little spark, something is pulling on it. Works best at night.
 
You can also put a voltmeter to it. ~12.5v or higher and it's fine. <12v and it's dead. Or put a carbon pile tester on it--which is what autozone does. Or you could touch your tongue to one post and a finger to the other.

If it's over 4 years old, just get a new battery...it's time anyway.
 
The battery is fairly new, almost 2 years. The battery will not drain if I disconnect the battery terminal. It could sit for weeks disconnected and fire right up when connected. It only drains if it is connected and sits for a day or two without running. I checked the wiring in cab and found nothing loose or drawing volts.

Guess I will try the tongue method..

Can the starter, if bad, continuously draw power even when ignition is off?
 
itllmakeit said:
I checked the wiring in cab and found nothing loose or drawing volts.
Click to expand...

How did you do this? use a voltmeter on amps between the battery and a terminal? We can't assume you've done work like this before..

What's your voltage when running? borrow another battery and see what the voltage is with that, if possible.
 
Rich said:
How did you do this? use a voltmeter on amps between the battery and a terminal? We can't assume you've done work like this before..

What's your voltage when running? borrow another battery and see what the voltage is with that, if possible.
Click to expand...

Ditto... IIRC, the only way to find *WHAT'S* dragging you batt. down is to connect a test light between the positive post and the positive cable... then start yanking fuses until the light goes out... at least that's how I found my brakelight switch was sticking and causing the same symptoms... (BTW, fixed it by simply pulling the wires "We don't need no stinkin' brake lights" :flipoff2: )
 
By the way, I am the newbie and I have been a reader of the forum for some time but have not been a member till recently. I seen alot of good stuff in here and figured it was time to join. I am greatful for all the responses Ive gotten already. Thanx. Ok, Enough about that...

Back to the battery//

When running, the volts are anywhere between 10.5 and 13 according to my volt gauge. On the volt meter it shows a fluctuation between something like 10.8 and 12.7 if I remember correctly. The frustration of the problem has played its toll. When it is running, sometimes the gauge reads around ??? 10 - 11 ???, when given a good shot of fuel it jumps close to 13.5. After shut-down, hooking a voltmeter to battery posts, the volts begin to drop to around 8 which is not enough juice to get her going again. auto zone says battery is good. I can not figure out what is draining the battery for the life of me. I figured it would have been the starter but everyone I asked had said no that a starter would not do that. So, I disregarded the starter and searched elsewhere.
 
Down to 8 volts?? sheesh! Pull the + cable to the starter and charge the battery.. then touch the cable to the terminal that you'd attach it to.. Sounds like you'll get a good spark if the starter is drawing juice...but whatever it is, that's alot 'o juice.

On second thought.. it's a SBC. Go to NAPA and drop $40 on a starter...

At any rate, you've got a big current draw, and if it's not the starter wire, you've got a fire waiting to happen...
 
Might want to take the whole thing to auto zone and have them check the charging system. An alternator should charge between 13.5 and 14.2 volts when working corectly. (Not that I would trust your voltage gauge to be entirely accurate). but it's just a thought.
 
OK. So the positive lead of the battery was shorted to ground, (headers,) for some period of time. Get that wire insulated and replace the battery. If you take it out and inspect it, it's probably bulging a little. I had one short a cell due to age, but a carbon pile tester did not pick it up. If it drops that quickly, a cell is dead. If it was current draw, the alternator probably could not keep up with the draw and it would kill the motor. Also, whatever's drawing the current would be smoking by now! Heck, whip the battery out of another car and see if that fixes it! But for God's sake, keep the hot wires away from hot metal.
 
Went to auto zone with everything. The alternator, starter, battery and everything tested good. Got a new alternator anyway cause that nice thing called a lifetime warranty. Stuck it all back in and messed with it some more. At start-up, she was pulling about 12.5 volts. Unhooked the battery and it died. Started it again, gave her some juice and the volts went up to about 13-14, disconnected battery and she ran fine. Shut it down and re-start with no juice, got 12 volts again and died after disconnecting battery.
 
I think I got it... After checking the pigtail on the alt, I discovered that it was possibly bad. Just wasnt getn good contact and if I moved it then volts would start flowing or stop flowing. Replaced it and now volts are a steady 12.7 to 14.5. Hopefully I got it. Who would have thought it would have been something so little. Guess time will tell if this fixs it. Hey, at least I got to spend sometime with the truck and the tools...
 
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