No one asked for pics, if they did I don't have a digital camera, my phone is an old flip phone. To post pics I'd have to dig out my polaroid, hope the film is still good and go find someone to put them on a disc or something.

The second truck was dead this morning, after starting it, I moved it up by the house to unload some stuff from the back seat, when i went to restart it, both batteries were too low to restart it.
When I tested battery volts, they were down to 11.87 v. I had to take a ride to Walmart in my Crown Vic to get two more batteries. I put those right in as suggested. I drove the truck over to the garage where I keep it, shut it off and ate breakfast. It started up when I came back, I took it for a short ride around the block, about 20 miles and came back. The battery volts are now 12.21v sitting, 14.8v running. Brand new batteries, second truck, batteries never charged. How far should I have to drive the thing for it to recover enough juice in the batteries after a start?
To make it worse, it was almost 60°F this morning.
Up to this point its been fine all week. I suppose if I were to have left it running or gone for a long drive it wouldn't have been a no start but I couldn't leave it running right up next to the house like that.

I looked at the 04 long bed truck but found the truck had some body rust and the 'new' bed was rusty underneath. The guy wouldn't budge off $5k. I walked away.
These trucks are 17 years old, I don't think any of them were a really great deal, they were just cheaper than buying a new one, something I probably would never due these days with all the emissions on the new diesels.
I'm not real sure I want these diesels anymore. I buy a couple cars and trucks every year, I suppose its why I've got so many buildings full of old vehicles. I rarely sell anything. I tend to just park it and store it.
Its why I still have every truck I ever bought still sitting in a back garage. According to the bank, blue book on one of these trucks is only around $7500 max, so I don't see where I'm getting anything so super cheap,
I have $9k in both 03 trucks, they both needed tires, fluids, belts, and both area apparently giving me starting issues now. I likely wouldn't have bought number two if it wasn't nearly identical to the first one, and the guy was anxious to get it out of the garage so he could sell the place and move. Both are jet black with black leather inside, both are supercab shortbed 4x4's with the FX4 package. Both came from about 20 miles of one another here in PA. I tend to buy any clean old vehicle if its got low miles and no rust. I will not deal with rust and won't usually buy anything with any body damage. I have bought a few low miles cars that needed motors due to sitting too long. I have no problem putting a new motor or trans in a vehicle if that's all it needs to fix it. Its far better than dealing with annoying issues like these have.

I ordered two 140a alternators from a local auto-electric shop here, he seems to think having more amps available will help I'm not convinced that they'll fix the problem but I'll gamble the $250 to find out I guess.
If it wasn't such a pain to unhook the one battery and connect two separate maintainers, I'd just live with doing that. I'm thinking of using a constant duty solenoid to connect and disconnect the right battery, that way when the truck is at rest, one battery will be disconnected, thus I could simply run two leads out the front to connect to the battery maintainer. Right now I've got two leads hidden in the grill, and a battery switch under the hood. I just bought two remote controlled battery disconnect switches rated for 500a each, what I'm thinking of doing it putting one on each battery with a single cable, that way I can pull the cable, kill both batteries and just plug the thing in when I park it. I'll make that decision later though, I''ve decided to make some changes in the garage and I'll e adding two more doors to eliminate having to move so many vehicles to get the one I want out. When all that's done, I may rethink how and where all the battery maintainers are mounted. At first I tried to mount the maintainer under the hood and just leave the 120v lead accessable near the engine heater lead so I could just plug it in but one maintainer can't handle two batteries so I went with the battery switches and two maintainers on the wall and 12v - 2 wire leads to connect to. Every one of my trucks have this set up right now, I've never needed it on my cars, but I do have charge leads on their batteries.

 

Looks like the film was still good when you dug out your Polaroid as recently as a week or so ago, judging by your recently posted pic of your 6 amp charger. I can't remember Polaroid film ever looking that good even when brand new.

 

I had my neighbor take that pic and email it to me since she was here that day. Getting a pic to the web means finding someone with a phone with a camera, then getting them to email the pic to me, then I have to go to my other house, where my computer is to download that pic so I can upload it to the web here. Its a total pain in the ***.
I do not have internet service at the house where he trucks are parked, only electric. The only reason I keep the old flip phone is so I have a way to call out from there. I pay $15/mo for my cell phone, and I won't make any changes that jeopardizes that.

The second truck, with the fresh off the shelf batteries from Walmart last week, that's been sitting with both batteries disconnected in the garage wouldn't start this morning. Both batteries were too low to crank the engine after the glow plugs cycled. They sat only 4 days. I drove the truck on the 10th most of the day with the new batteries, parked it with the batteries reading 12.31v after using it most of the day. I backed it in the garage where my Lincoln was parked, disconnected the batteries because I haven't yet gotten the two battery disconnects for that truck yet. Today, I had to move the truck to get a tractor out, and it wouldn't crank after the glow plug light went out. It was 54 degrees in the garage.
I now have both of those batteries on a pair of chargers and I had to install two of the Deka batteries that were on charge from my other truck just to get it out of the garage.

 

The wormhole strike the second truck.

Ok how are you D/Cing the batteries. They is no way a set of week old batteries shouldn't start you truck.

 

12.31 volts after using the truck means you have a problem charging those batteries.

 

When I first shut the truck off, the batteries are both reading 13.84v. I drove that truck that day, came home, pulled up to the house and unloaded some things, then I restarted it and pulled it into the garage. That truck doesn't yet have the leads for the battery maintainer so I just disconnected both negative terminals.
I had ordered the pig tails and two battery switches but hadn't gotten them yet. The next morning I left for FL for a few days so the truck sat there. When I got back after the weekend, I reconnected the batteries and it wouldn't crank after going through the glow plug cycle. I had to charge it over night to get it started again. I pulled it out, put the battery switch and charging pigtails on the truck and let the batteries sit on the smart charger overnight. The next morning the smart charger was reading 'ERR' and both batteries were still at 12.22v. I then left each one on an pair of older Sears timed 10a chargers for about 10 hours and that got the volts back up to 12.77v, I let them sit disconnected on the bench over night, and in the morning they were reading 12.51 and 12.55v each.
The smart charger is junk, I've never had one of those successfully charge any battery here. They either fail the battery as defective right away or go into some sort of default mid charge and waste my time.

Having the second truck gives me another truck for reference as to what is normal.
Both trucks charge at 14.4 to 14.8 volts all the time.
Both trucks show me between 140 and 155 amps of glow plug draw when the key is first turned on.
Both trucks cycle their glow plugs on for about the same amount of time for a given temp.
Both trucks have the 110a alternator.
Batteries that have been in these trucks are junk when put into any of the other vehicles I've got here. For arguments sake, I took one of the Deka batteries that were replaced four weeks ago, and swapped it into my 2004 Lincoln T/C. It was okay for two days, on the third day it struggled a bit to start, but I drove it all day anyway. The next morning that battery was too low to start that car. I put the original battery back into that car and its been fine since.
Something is screwing up the batteries, even when they show good voltage and have been on charge over night, they do not recover from a glow/start cycle even after driving it for several hours with the voltage at the batteries at 14.4v. The voltage and amps are there, the batteries are not retaining it.

I see no reason why a battery that's less than a week old should go dead just sitting there, it wasn't connected to the truck.
What I do see is that if the battery isn't fully charged when it's left sit, it loses voltage fast sitting there. If its right off the charger, they seem to settle down to about 12.52- 12.58v and stay there. One start with the glow plugs and the batteries are low, and making a second consecutive start is pot luck, and a third impossible even with fresh batteries. Even if there were a 500a draw at start up, it shouldn't take the batteries down that low. If I load test a fresh battery with the load tester, (either the VAT40 or a handheld, the batteries recover on their own just sitting there after the load is removed). Once they've been in one of these trucks, they will not rebound like that. they remain at what ever voltage they were at when they were under load.

 

STOP USING ALL YOUR CHARGERS.

Something is killing your batteries. It is odd and highly unlikely that both of your trucks have the same problem that kills the batteries. The only constants between the two are the CHARGERS you use and you. Eliminate one variable to try to troubleshoot this problem. Something is probably happening to damage the plates. So stop trying to charge them.

 

So I have 20+ bad chargers and 29 bad battery maintainers?
I can't see that. I intentionally have been using different chargers, I've got at least a dozen of the 5 and 6amp variety, and as many of the 10 amp version of that model, plug several 10 and 12a models with timers. Plus, I've got four new smart chargers, two Snap On chargers, one Marquette multi battery charger, two Solar Starter/Chargers, and a Rotunda 24 battery charger/maintainer that came from a dealer parts department.
The two most common points to fail in these chargers are the diode plates and the transformer itself. The diodes are huge, they only fail if the charger is being severely overheated and these have a circuit breaker in line that prevents this. The only chargers I've ever had fail this way are the newer, all plastic models built since the late 80's or so. I had one Diehard Starter/Charger fail by loosing a secondary winding in the main transformer.
Also, if the chargers were at fault, then why did the last set go dead without ever being touched, they were installed, driven about 40 miles and then back home, I shut it off, unloaded the truck, then restarted it and parked it in the garage. It died in four days with the batteries disconnected.
I have switched trucks with a buddy for the week, he took the second truck to FL with my camper. I have his 2019 F350 with a 6.7L engine. He's got a fancy cap on the truck and didn't want to deal with the poor visibility towing the camper.
His truck is parked, in my garage for the next week or two. I drove it today a bit, did my weekly grub run to the supermarket with it. I won't likely need it till Fri. His truck has only 4400 miles on it. He told me if its below freezing I most likely need to plug it in. But the garage never gets below freezing, it was 49°F in there this afternoon. He's talking about selling it to lose a payment. I'm not sure I care to deal with the whole DEF fluid mess or not.

 

Are you parking these trucks anywhere within this shaded area on the map below? Just wondering.

 

I wish I had seen this earlier. Your not alone. I've spoken to at least a dozen others with similar or the same issues with these trucks, all 2003 6.0L trucks driven as personal or occasional use vehicles.

I have four 03 6.0L trucks, all were inherited, all with super low miles. I've had them now for a little over 3 years.
I have a company car so I rarely drive anything of mine. I keep them because they're paid for and I can't buy anything as nice for what I can sell them for.
I've been going mad with these things when it comes to batteries. Battery maintainers don't work, they just seem to kill the batteries.
Each of these trucks sits for weeks, sometimes months at a time, all of my vehicles do. I've got 9 right now, counting the four F250's.
The first sets of batteries lasted me only a few months, the next set a few weeks. The dealer changed the alternator, starter, glow plug relay, ECM, and all the battery cables on the one truck, and it didn't fix a thing.
Its still dead every two to three weeks. None of these four trucks will make four consecutive starts in a row without killing its batteries. They won't make two starts when its cold.
Right now one truck has two brand new Motorcraft batteries, one has a pair from Walmart, one got a set of Interstate batteries, (put in by the same dealer), and one has two Napa Gold batteries.
All have the exact same draw, all charge almost exactly the same voltage you have on yours, about 14.4- 14.8v.. The voltage drops a bit from that while the glow plugs are still lit, but it jumps right back up.
Mine all charge between 60 and 68 amps when the glow plugs are on, and that levels out to about 35-40a at idle once they turn off. With the defrosters on, blower on high, radio playing, warming up in the driveway, the battery will never recover. It takes a good long highway run to get the batteries even somewhat back to their proper voltage. I've never seen my battery voltage over 12.61v without charging them externally. I bought a Scan Gauge for each of my trucks, so I can watch what the battery voltage is doing. Running down the highway, I have 14.8 volts on average, a bit less with the headlights on. The driving lights drop that voltage down to 14.1 volts.
Each of my trucks are under 20K, one has only 900 miles on it. I refuse to believe there's something 'wrong' with any of them, I just think they failed to give these a big enough charging system to handle recovery from the glow plug and starter draw at start up. They squeak by when its warm, and the batteries are more efficient, but as soon as it gets colder outside they have issues. I checked the current draw on two of mine yesterday, I got .021a and .029a on the two lower mileage trucks. The other's were too hard to get to since they were pulled up close to the back wall of the garage. My garage is three deep and two wide, I often have to pull one truck out to get another one out, the same with my Dodge and my Ranger. I've had diesel Fords in the past, I never had charging issues with them. My last diesel was a 1987 7.3L IDI, I could start and stop that a dozen times a day and never worry about it starting back up.
I considered buying a larger alternator or doing the pulley swap but unless I have some guarantee that'll fix these from going dead all the time, and let me start and stop these things as needed when I'm out and about, I can't see spending the money. As it stands now, these trucks are only reliable on fresh batteries, once they go dead, and won't start once, even though I can charge them back up, they're never reliable again. They lose something when they get discharged somehow. All my other vehicles keep their batteries at or around 12.55 volts, this truck seems to only be able to maintain about 12.30 volts after a day of driving. If I make several stops throughout the day, its often lower. I took the one truck last Sunday to NY. About a 5 hour ride each way. I when I left, standing voltage was 12.59 volts after being fully charged overnight. After a short glow plug cycle and start, I had 12.02 v. I let it run a bit to warm up and left for NY. While driving, the Scan Gauge read 14.6 volts and eventually 14.8v. I stopped after 4 hours for lunch, when I shut it off I had 13.65v. After 20 minutes that dropped to about 12.41v. Back on the road and the volts again read 14.8v. I got there, loaded up the trailer and tied down the bike I bought, and headed back. When I went to restart, the battery voltage was 12.36v. After starting, it lingered around 14v, then crept up to 14.8v on the highway. I drove straight through to get home, parked the trailer, backed the truck into the garage and shut it off. I waited a few minutes and the volts were 12.39v. I disconnected both battery neg. cables, and had planned to put each one on charge but fell asleep and forgot about it. The next morning I go out to the garage and the batteries are reading 12.24v. I tried to crank the truck up but the volts dropped to 11.04v by the time the glow plug light went out, and it wouldn't crank the engine. I charged both batteries all day on a 10a charger, I had to use my 300 amp Associated 6/12/24v charger to get the batteries charged enough where the new style 'smart charger would even charge them. Both batteries are a month old, both Motorcraft BXT65-850's. After charging all Sunday, the chargers shut off and I had 13.68 v in each battery, and they settled down to 12.59 volts after about an hour. I connected the batteries, tried to start the truck and watched the battery voltage drop to 12.31v after the glow plug light went out, I cranked it up, pulled it out of the garage to turn it around, then shut it back off. The batteries were only at 11.98v. It wouldn't restart. I put it back on the charger.
I got through this with every one of these trucks. Apparently my uncle who had them since new was dealing with the same thing as I've got dozens of receipts for batteries, towing, alternators, starters, etc, over and over. He obviously didn't drive them any more than I do since they had almost no miles on them after 15 years or so when he died and left them to me.
All of mine are identical trucks, four of a kind, all fully loaded XLT trucks with 6.0L engines. I only use mine for towing, I've got each one set up to tow a different trailer, so which truck I do use when I use them depends on which trailer I'm using. One tows only my enclosed trailers, one only tows my equipment trailer, one only pulls the car trailer, and one only pulls my fifth wheel camper or the fifth wheel horse trailer. None will ever see more than 25k on them while I own them, I won't live long enough to see them get high miles. Its a perk of having 9 vehicles I guess. But I wish I could get to the bottom of these four trucks.
I've been dealing with this for over a year now with no fix in sight. Just a pile of dead batteries and a ton of money spent on a professional battery maintainer system that don't work, and a grand or more spent on battery chargers and a jump starter. I've gotten to the point where I mounted two batteries in a wood box with a lid and I toss them in the back if I go somewhere. That way I have the ability to jump start the truck or swap out the batteries for a fully charged pair if needed if I get stuck.
I find that if I'm pulling a trailer that has a battery onboard that is charged through the 7 pin towing jack, the issues get worse. The charging voltage drops a few points and the batteries take far longer to recover enough to make another start down the road.
I

 

Apparently the problem seems to exist with people of the same thought process and writing style.

Although you have a history of more unique problems on this site then member 6.0, again the problems unlike the one’s that others have, with the same mix of other vehicles you have, older Ford Pickups, Crown Vic’s, .... parked for some time.....

Interesting requests for help. You two guys should talk more.

its early, I could be wrong.

 

How does that expression go? "You'd have to wake up pretty early in the morning to fool me."

Although 2:00 AM to 2:48 AM is pretty darn early in the morning.

Let's have a look:













We all benefit when FTE thrives as an authentic community of folks who find this forum to be fun and friendly. The resiliency of FTE as a reliable resource of information hinges on the integrity of the individuals who contribute to it.

It is perfectly understandable to forget a password and lose an email address. Changes in ISPs, marital status, domiciles, etc happen. And in the frustration of not remembering previous log in credentials and lacking access to old emails, people sometimes do re-register under a different user name, even though guidelines do not permit this. However, starting over with a new user name is very different than having a public conversation with one's self under two different user names in the same currently active thread, with the intent to imply to FTE readers that two different individuals are involved. That is a technique that internet marketers use to create false buzz about products... fabricating personas with problems, and fabricating new personas with solutions to those problems that appear to be organically recommended by word of mouth. When forums become full of these shenanigans, the value of the forum degrades, because members seek authenticity.

@6.0L and @03diesel You would "both" do well to either clarify or correct this coincidence, before your upcoming birthday that you share in common. Please reach out to Super Moderator @Maxium4x4 via Private Messaging to get this sorted.

Thanks for understanding!

 

This morning I thought I was having a “The Man in the High Castle” moment. Damn wormholes.

 

Jeez Louise!
How embarrassing!

 

Sounds like some one is gonna get detention!!