justaguy65

I am having an issue with my 65 289 not wanting to start. I just put a new battery in. For some reason after it has been sitting for a few hours, it will not start without a jump. But once it is started, everything checks out fine as far as the battery and alternator. It seems like something is draining the battery while the car sits for a while. Has anyone else ever had this problem? I make sure that all the lights are off. It doesn't have a radio. What could be causing it not to turn over with-out a jump start? Thanks for any help.

cmanf

Try pulling the + cable while its running. If it dies then most time its the alt. If not could be the voltage reg.
Changing either one is a breeze.

jc92073

If you have an amp meter you can check and see if there is a battery draw. You should be close to .00 amps with the key and all the lights off. If it shows amp draw start pulling fuses and see if it goes away.

Gun Jam

The battery its self could also be bad and leaking voltage internally but thats not likely with a new battery but still reasonable.
What happened to the old battery did it start doing the same thing?

-Gun

JMD

OP!!

This is great advice!

Remove the + cable from the battery, hook one end of the amp meter to the battery, and the other end to the removed cable. The meter should read very very close to, or exactly on zero,,, but it will not on your car...

Remove fuses one at a time, checking the meter after each removal.

If the meter does not drop after all of the fuses are removed, remove the wires from the alternator, and then from the regulator. At some point the meter will zero.

When it does, note the change made immediately prior, the problem will be in this circuit. When you know which circuit, re-postwith this information...

kalli

+1 aye .. all that will help you isolating the problem.
when you can come up with an ampmeter hook it up between battery- and the cable that goes normally to battery- (inline).
Don't measure across battery+ and bat- (that's how you measure voltage).
If you use a multimeter as ampmeter, then do NOT start the car while it's hooked up as otherwise the current will destroy the leads of the multimeter (burn), or the fuse, or if very unucky the whole multimeter. (Starter pulls a lot of current through those tiny cables)

jlg2002

If you are saying that in the matter of 4-5 hours, the battery won't crank the engine, that's one hell of a amperage draw. (or you have a bad new battery) when this event occurs you need to do the following:
Does it crank, or just click or nothing.
Turn the headlights on, do they come on a full brightness if no, it's definitely in the battery or the recharging of the battery.
Take the battery back to where you bought it and have them check it for voltage and capacity, if it's good, test the alternator for output.
You may need a special ammeter to check battery draw, most of the ones found on modern DVM's are not large enough or fast enough to do you any good. The best ammeter is a 0-30 AMP analog type.
Good Luck!

boogerschnot

Sounds like a bad battery to me... This is some good advice!!

toolwench

One other little thing, too... Are your battery cables tight and not corroded? Sometimes just the act of jiggling one or the other (like when you attach the jumper cable) can give it a better connection and be enough to get the car started. Obviously, your best bet would be to get out the ammeter, though, to find out for sure what's going on with the battery and the rest of the system.