voltage drain
battery drain
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From: nevada
battery drain
Still looking for the elec prob with my '72. have installed a 1 wire alt and now over a 2 day period, the battery will lose half of its charge. When I hook the pos cable to the hot side of solenoid, there is a spark. Nothing is on in the truck, and no juice at the coil with the key off. When i disconnect the wire that powers the fuse box at the solenoid, there is no spark when hooking the pos cable up. so the prob is in that wire, but cant figure out what is still sucking juice. My next move is to unhook wire from alt, and see if that does anything. I'm at the point of installing a second solenoid to this fuse box wire and having everything go dead when i turn the key off.
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Connect an amp meter in series with either the positive or negitive battery cable. (Most volt/ohm meters have a 10 amp position.) Go to the fuse block and remove one fuse at a time and try and find which circuit is drawing the current which runs your battery down. You should show 0 amps but remember if the door is open and the dome light is on, or your radio has a memory or maybe a clock you will show a few milliamps at the battery. Also disconnect the lead to the alternator if you think that is your problem.
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From: nevada
I dont think the battery is the prob, I've had a fairly new Everstart battery in it, and now one of those $100+ gel batteries. Plenty of spark, if I disconnect the bat cable for two days, the battery doesnt go down at all. This has to be in the start/charge system, i dont think anything in the fuse box would do it. Nothing is on, and the radios memory wouldnt use near this much juice. i've also disconnected the electronic box on the electric fan setup, but no difference. if it isnt the alt, I'm thinking a short somewhere?
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From: nevada
spark, not good
I know that when you hook a hot wire to anything, a spark means it is drawing current. tomorrow I will unhook the alt and take a look. This was a brand new J*gs 1-wire alt. In a way I hope it's the culprit, but then again I dont. If it is, then I dont know if it was bad from the gitgo, or something on my truck killed it. At any rate, I will find out in the morn.
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From: nevada
Unhooked the starter and the alternator, and still got the spark at hot side of solenoid when I rehooked bat cable. so started pulling fuses and a couple of fuse "taps" that I use to wire a few things, (running lights and aftermarket radio). When i unhook the tap that goes to the radio, the solenoid spark goes away. this was hooked to a hot fuse, not a switched fuse. So I moved it to the switched fuse and everything is ok, except I lose all of my preset stations whenever I turn the key off. something in that radio was using power when the truck is turned off. so I've narrowed it down a bit, at least the battery isnt draining anymore.
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From: nevada
darn cb radio
Well, I found the culprit. it was the cb radio all along. It was wired into the hot wire with the radio. It is the type that "stays on" even when its turned off. (Weather alert capability). so I think what happened was that when I installed the 1 wire alternator, one of the switched wires on the regulator that ran to the fuseblock got hooked to a full time hot wire (hot side of solenoid), so it wouldnt go off when the switch is off.
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From: nevada
radio preset
Just found out why my radio station preset wasnt working right. It has two leads for pwr, one for radio and one for clock and preset. Red goes to switched fuse, yellow goes to non switched fuse. So now all is good. Now I just have to run a ground wire with a switch so I can turn off my electric fans when I want to.