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Hello and thank you in advance for any insight you can give me.
My ‘04 F350 with the 6.0 is acting like my batteries are dead.
A few months ago, in the middle of the night, my door locks were locking and unlocking randomly through the night and it had a slow crank in the AM. I got new batteries and I thought that was it.
I drive it about once every month or two, it sits allot.
So it seems to always have low batteries, sometimes the battery light is on while it warms up, light goes out after I drive it a bit.
2 weeks ago, driving home it was acting as if the dual alternators weren’t charging. Headlights were dim, dash lights going out, finally the headlights went out all together, as I pull off to the side of the road, everything comes back on and I make it home.
Today I go out to start it and batteries are dead. I grab my trusty spare jumper battery, hook it up and still no crank, just the dreaded “tick,tick,tick” of dead battery.
The batteries register 11.70.
The jumper battery register at 12.00.
I don’t see any frayed wires, I cleaned all the battery connections, although I did not clean any of the grounds to the block.
I’m leaning towards alternator troubles? As if they are shorting out? They are both original.
I’m baffled!
sorry for the long read.
I also found an oil leak while I was looking around.
It’s leaking somewhere near the starter.
I’ll try to add pics.
Odd about those door locks low voltage or shorted wire does weird stuff
Battery light usually means alternator troubles when it stays illuminated while running
you will need digital gauge
Battery or charging system problems commonly kill FICM’s especially when it’s an ongoing problem of low voltage
you will need to check the FICM voltage in addition to battery load test and alternator output check and might end up checking for parasitic voltage draw
You probably also have alternator problems, but your truck batteries are shot. I'd charge and load test that spare battery to see if it isn't shot also.
If you are only driving it occasionlly I would recommend using a battery charger/maintainer to keep the batteries in top condition. I would also have the batteries and alternators tested to verify if they are good/bad. At the same time I would inspect and clean ALL of the grounds.I would also add two ground wires as Jack(ToomanyToys) has recommended in a video he made a few years back
Perhaps Jack will chime in with some input as well as he is very knowledegable and his videos provide a wealth of info. I hope that I listed the correct link to the correct video.
Do you have someway to monitor the battery voltage while driving?
I’ve got new alternators installed, but I think you are right about the batteries being toast. One of them won’t take a charge. They weren’t even a year old!
I need to test the FICM and see what’s up with that.
Dump the dual alternator setup. They are worthless. Get a single bigger alternator. I prefer the leece Neville with a beefed up charging wire and fuse.
You’ve got new alternators so there’s no need to switch to a single single alternator system.
But I would still be worried about those batteries. Most automotive parts stores will test batteries for free and you really need to do that. A deep discharge of the batteries will cause them to fail early and within one year is not unusual if they haven’t been properly recharged.
I would take up Rob’s advice and use a maintenance charger in between your driving.
But it sounds like you have a parasitic loss which is draining down the batteries. That could take some work to figure out, and it doesn’t sound like you’re that hands-on with a vehicle so you may want to get that checked out.
It was the Alts.
I charged up the batteries, installed the new Alternators and it’s just fine.
The batteries might have their overall life shortened, but everything is just fine for now.
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