Ok.. My battery is starting to run down if I leave my truck setting for a few days, Its been a pain to figure this thing out, let me start from the begining..

Back Id say about 2 weeks ago my truck started to act like the plugs was dead in it, you know when you kick it down how a fouled plug pops and flutters around, thats how it done...
Well first. I took it to my local speed shop and had my old truck tuned on.It had never been done on it sense I redone the truck, now its got 10k miles..Well I had the carb tuned and the timing set to 15*, it ran alot better but still when I went to kick it down it ran up to about 2500 RPM and started poping and fluttering, I took it back, we looked and talked about it for about 20-30 min., He was getting ready to close and he told me to go ahead and get some new plugs.
Well I went to the parts store and got a set of new plugs, and a fuel fillter, it was looking bad so I thought that may have something to do with it. I came back put all my goodies on, hoping it would fix it..I was wrong, It ran even better than before.. but It still was poping and going on when it hit 2500 RPM, While I was out taking it for a test spin, after I installed the plugs I looked down at the gas, I was starting to get low, So I pulled in the gas station right above my house, cut it off got out and filled it up.. I got back in put the key in and nothing!..It just cranked over really slow, my battery was on its last legs..I called dad he came and boosted me off.. It acted just fine till I got up the road a piece and then started doing that again..That told me right there it was either in my battery or my altenator

Got home, took a test light to everything with my key off, when I touched the one of the connectors on the back of the altenator the light came on.. Im not forsure but the altenator isnt supposed to have power on it is it?.And Are there anything I need to check that might be draining my battery like that and that fast?

Please Help!!



Custom

 

Moved to electrical guru forum.

 

A test light isn't going to help you much here. You need a voltmeter. They are fairly priced at most auto parts stores. (around $30 usually) You need to measure voltage across the battery terminals with the engine running. You should get between 13.5-14.5 volts. If the alternator is ok then I would look towards the battery. If the voltage isn't right then you most likely have a bad alternator or voltage regulator. Sometimes the voltage regulator is inside the alternator. The wire that has power on it is normal. It's just the alternator to battery line. It will always have power on it as long as there is a battery hooked up to it that is not dead. (dead as in completly dead, no voltage whatsoever).

 

A test light will work good to find a battery drain if you disconnect the negative cable from the battery and connect the test light in series between the battery and the cable. The light glows bright when there's a drain. Start disconnecting things/fuses until the light goes out.
Check this post...https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...t=%25252Bdrain

 

The alt does have power on it all the time, because it's hooked directly to the battery. It is designed not to drain the battery, but sometimes something inside will go wrong and will cause it to drain the battery. But I would concentrate on the "running voltage" check. If your battery was getting low, because the alt is broke, this could cause the "breaking up" of the ignition, if the ignition wasn't getting enough voltage, or getting too much voltage.

 

The voltage regulator is mounted on the fender, the truck is a 79' model..

Are they anyway to check to see if thats bad

 

As jrs_big_ford_f150 said:


" You need to measure voltage across the battery terminals with the engine running. You should get between 13.5-14.5 volts."

 

Where is the eletrical guru forum? Moved to?

 

Look at the blue lettering at the top of the screen.

Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums > Misc. > Electrical Systems/Wiring

You are already in the electrical forum. This post was probably started in another forum for his year truck, engine, or whatever, and the moderator Torque1st transferred (moved to) the post here to see if he could get some help with his problem.

If you clicked on the original post, you probably got beamed here by the software.