dimebag

ok so last night i had the motor started up and running fine... guage was a little low... i guess i can blame that on the fact that i have done alot of start ups and idle, but no driving at all.

well i went to start it today to move it to fix this water pump issue, and i had nothing, no int. lights no nothing. ok, ill jump it, i remember having a slight draw on the batt... big deal... well i go to jump it w. the tahoe, and in hooking up the wires i got ALOT of sparks, and when it was hooked up, it was a huge load on the tahoe, more so then its ever been... i went to try to see if it'd start, and still nothing, no int. no nothing..also, trying to jump it, right away for a sec. the motor turned over... that made me thing the solenoid was bad, so i just swaped it, and now that batt is charging... goin out in a few to **** w. it some more when the batt. is charged

um all ive ch anged was the + batt. cable, its a 2guage now, not 4guage... but that had no effect last night...

electrical work is my weak point... so any help is appreciated

notchbackmatt87

sounds like you took care of the problem when will you be going out i wanna stay up and hear the outcome

88 GT CONV

Have you checked for a parasitic load? (anything that draws current with the ignition off)

dimebag

i havent taken care of it.... i need to figure out what to do lol...

and yes i know there is a very very small parasitic load on it... but its small enough that it was never a problem before

88 GT CONV

Over what length of time did the battery go from 12v to dead?

notchbackmatt87

i suck with electrical ****.

dimebag

hard to say.... i mean it was good wed night... now its bad... remember too, prolly 5 start ups, and only a few min of idle, no driving or any higher rpms at all

fourfivefour

Maybe it's just your battery is going bad.

Turn off all of your accessories, close doors and shut off anything that may draw juice.
Disconnect your negative cable and connect your test light between the neg cable and neg post. The test light should not light or only have a dim light. If you get a bright light something is drawing juice. Make sure everything is turned off. Start disconnecting stuff to find the draw.
Check for pinched or burned wires.

88 GT CONV

Hook it up to a new battery and see if it holds charge with the car running. Use a DVOM to monitor the fluctuations. If its a steady drop, then you know it is a charging system failure.

mjr46

Hey Dime.....you need to charge that battery up fully and then reinstall it and using a multimeter set to amps hook it in series with the neg battery terminal and take your reading 25 to 50 milliamps max is a gereral rule of thumb........if there is an excessive current draw then you'll need to narrow down which circuit it is on.....when performing the test make sure all doors and under hood light are off and check the glove box light as a quick check...anyway after an excessive current draw is verified......you'll need to some how pull fuses one by one and watching the multimeter as each fuses is removed and put back....once you pull the fuse on the problem circuit then the reading on your meter should read within limits and from there you reference that circuit to diagram and examine all components on that circuit that may cause the problem and put the fuse back in place while working on that circuit and one by one unplug the components on that circuit until the load/draw diappears and there you'll have the culprit when you find the problem/component causing the problem..you'll need a wiring diagram to see how the circuit is controlled if it's controlled via aground...how?? if it's controlled via power..how?? knowing this and reading the diagram correctly will help you accurately pinpoint the problem area fast