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S Chassis Technical discussion related to the S Chassis such as the S12, S13, S14, and S15.


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Old 10-13-2012, 12:08 PM   #1
rwtf
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KA Battery drain problem???

OK so heres the deal.

I have a Duralast gold battery, relocated in the trunk, using 4ga wire as power and ground, I also have a amp wired in as well, but it was doing it before the amp.

My battery would drain over the course of about 2 to 3 days. The only way I keep it from dying is unhooking the neg. terminal for the battery, battery holds a charge just fine.

So today, I made a test light to find the draw...well this is none....the light only lit up when the trunk light was on but I took out the trunk light and the test light goes off. Now I know I should check it with a Multi Meter, but I don't have one that can read mA.

Is my battery just complete crap? If I had the money I would replace it, and just get a redtop, but times are hard...

btw,its 93 coupe, stock wiring, alt puts out 14v like it should.
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Old 10-14-2012, 11:29 AM   #2
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i would take the battery out and to autozone or o'rileys , they will run a load cycle on it , i would guess it has a bad cell .
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Old 10-14-2012, 12:09 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bad dog View Post
i would take the battery out and to autozone or o'rileys , they will run a load cycle on it , i would guess it has a bad cell .
+1 was going to recommend that
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Old 10-14-2012, 01:22 PM   #4
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Already did, battery tested good.
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Old 10-14-2012, 02:29 PM   #5
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i know your positive of battery is going to the front of the car , i would run the ground to the nearest good ground you can find in the back.

if that don't help i would remove the positive cable from the battery , connect it to the neg post for about 15 sec , then get a ohm meter and measure the resistance of the positive cable ( still disconnected from the battery ) to a good ground like the neg cable .

the forumla is E/IR , so if your battery voltage is 12.4 volts and you measure about 12.4 ohms you would be drawing 1 amp of current with only the-- radio--ecm--clock on all the time.

if the ohm meter reads about 1 ohm you would be drawing about 12.4 amps .

if thats the case you must start unpluging things and see if the resistance goes up , meaning less current draw, i would think the resistance should be more than 12 ohms , that would be a 1 amp load on the battery when you are not driving.

keep in touch.
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Old 10-14-2012, 02:58 PM   #6
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Test for parasitic draw.
Get your meter. Set it to amps, disconnect pos cable from post.
hook meter in series with post to cable and check amperage draw.
If it exceeds specs trace it down by doing it to individual fuses and go from there.
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Old 10-14-2012, 03:15 PM   #7
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what turtle said is the very best way to check for current draw , the thing is you must get a volt-ohm-amp meter that will read over 1 amp .

most normal vom's will no read that high.

even mine won't read that high . one easy way is to go to the radio shack , get a 1 ohm resistor , it must be able to handle at least 10 watts, someway clip one end to the battery positive post , connect the other end of the resistor to the positive cable ,measure the voltage across the resistor , remember the formula E/IR , if you measure 1 volt across the 1 ohm resistor that would be 1 amp ( P=EI ) , power in watts.

if you measure 8 volts across the 1 ohm resistor ( 8/1 ) the current drain is 8amps , i would think normal would be less than 1 amp .

i will add this , if radio shack does not have a 1 ohm 10 watt resistor try and get 10 each 10 ohm 1 watt , connect the ends together then they would measure 1 ohm and the wattage will be 10 watts .

then measure the voltage across the 1 ohm .

turtle had a good idea about measuring the current on different fuses.

if it were me i would disconnect the audio amp ( remove the power to it ) , leave it over night and see if you still have a dead battery.
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Old 10-25-2012, 09:48 AM   #8
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just for your information , i checked the current draw on my 97 240 and the current drain with everything off is 16ma or .016 amp .

the only things running on is the car clock and the pioneer radio clock .

key was off.
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Old 11-05-2012, 02:00 PM   #9
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check all bulbs and check ground bolt on the alternator gl

Last edited by s14skyvia; 11-14-2012 at 11:03 AM..
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Old 11-05-2012, 03:04 PM   #10
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^^ alternator +1
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