Electrical problem....

92silverlx

Registered User
the last couple of days I've been having a wierd electrical problem, I noticed it when my battery light would flicker, then stay on for awhile then turn off then flicker again then stay on, very sporadic, then yesterday the car died on me in traffic. I tried to restart but the battery was gone no juice at all, so I replaced the alternator, battery, and positive power cable. This seemed to have fixed the problem until today, the battery light came on again but now it comes on around 1200 rpms and starts off dim and proceeds to get brighter as the RPMS dip to an idle of around 700rpms. If I raise the rpms the battery light dims and disappears, and about an hour ago I took it out around the block, the lights would dim when coming to a stop and I noticed the tach was bouncing up and down about 100-200 rpms but the engine wasn't reving I also noticed the battery light did NOT come on. I pulled up the my driveway and stopped the car, left it in drive and watched the cluster lights proceed to get dimmer and dimmer, then the Antilock light came on, and the car died shortly after. The lights were so dim they were barely visible........I'm stumped....... I am currently running 3 aux fans, pusher infront of condenser, puller, and I/C fan continuously, I had no charging problems with my UDP's before this nasty gremlin popped up. I did notice after replacing the battery and alternator that the car felt like it gained some power off the line and better throttle response. The battery I replaced my old one with is considerably smaller 675 cranking amps and 540 cc amps, my old bat was over 800 cranking. I just replaced my cam and crank sensors aswell.....maybe my starter solenoid????? I'm really clueless at this point any help is greatly appreciated.

thanx
JOE
 
update.....
I checked the battery with a voltmeter it was around 11volts this morning so I charged it for 15mins on a trickle charger, after 15 mins the bat showed 12.7-.8 so I started the car and checked the volts at the bat, alt and solenoid. within the first couple of minutes of running at idle the voltage went from 12.7 to 13.1-.2, then when the fans came on (pusher and puller set at 180*) the voltage dropped to 12.5-.4 so I turned on my I/C fan to find that the voltage dropped again to around 12.2. The engine started to knock so i rev'd it and watched the rpms rise to around 14 volts then drop back down when i released the throttle cable and the rpms dropped. I disconnected the battery and charged it for 1/2 hour, but it wasn't registering a full charge by lighting the indicator light on the charger so I hooked it up to the voltmeter and watched as the voltage slowly dropped from 12.8 (max it would charge to) to around 12.2.
 
You may have an unwanted drain on the battery. To find the source of this drain (credit goes to rwyyattb and Andy 94Sc and possibly others for making me aware of this test), turn off the ignition, unplug the underhood light, and close all doors. Disconnect the negative battery cable and connect a 12v lamp between the cable and the negative battery terminal.

The lamp should glow dimly even if there isn't a problem because of current drawn by some devices even when the ignition is off (memory, alarm, etc.).
A multimeter should read below 100A with an alarm and below 20mA without one. Be careful with the multimeter; if you have a larger than normal current draw then you will damage the multimeter or at the very least blow its fuse.

If the 12v lamp glows quite brightly, then start pulling fuses one by one until the lamp goes dim. This will be the circuit that is causing your problem.
 
current draw on battery

i have battery that being run down over 2-3 weeks. i measured 240mAmps with everything off and with no alarm installed. so i should be reading 20mAmps?
 
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