Hey yall Just getting the truck out and going for the season. I left the heater on one cold night and ran the battery dead. I then crash started her up and then took her for a bit of a drive to charge the battery. When i got home and went to go to work the next day she didnt start. I charged her with the trickle charger all day and it then started on her own but only a couple times. Is that just the battery not holding the charge of the generator or the generator not generatin. When i drive the amp meter on my dash moves up so does that mean that its doing the job? Loving my truck.
Sounds like you have a dead cell in your battery, quick way without tools to check, only if you have a battery with those screw in caps, take all the caps of and start her up, keep the revs up so its charging and with a torch look into each cell and look for little bubbles and a rotten egg smell (sulphur) if you have tools, take the battery 'Live' (one to starter, could be + or -) off and place an ammeter or even a stop light bulb between the post and clamp, if you have a short or something draining the battery the ammeter will show a current flow or the bulb will glow, next check that its actually charging, run engine at fast idle and put a volt meter acoss battery posts, should be 13-14 volts if your a 12 volt system and i think its 7-8 for a 6 volt system ________ Cheap Vaporizer
oops, forgot to say, if you hold volt meter on battery and try and start truck with coil lead off, you should have no less than 11 volts when cranking, any less the battery is on its way out, not sure about 6 volt but i think its 4.7 volts when cranking minimum. ________ Public Compilation
Peabo: Being in Canada, you may understand that the "torch" Brit 50 was referring to is a flashlight, not a stick with fire burning on the end of it. Never get any fire near a charging battery. Bad things can happen.
Or : If you're lazy (who , me ? ) or don't have all those fancy shmancy tools : simply go for a long drive and then when you get home , disconnect the ground cable from the battery and tuck it down behind the battery where it cannot touch the post and go have a nice dinner , couple beers & hit the sack ~ in the morning , re-connect the battery and see if it'll start . It starts ? there's a parasitic draw on the battery , something is staying on when the truck isn't running . It didn't start ? battery is toast , you didn't like/want/need that one anyway so hi your self over to Wally Mart and by a good 'un ' On The Cheap ' . Remember too : dirty greasy wet battery tops can and do run themselves down by parasitic draw between the posts ~ any time I see a dirty battery , out it comes for a nice bath with dish soap and gets fully dried off before I polish the posts & re-install , a new strong battery won't show any troubles from this but a serviceable if marginal one will . Charge at the lowest setting your charger has , typically 10 ~ 15 amperes , for 12 hours or longer to get a full charge and not hurt the battery ~ quick charging takes years off a betterys life . You can make up a simple cheap charging tester from the volt gauge scrounged off a junked truck in Pick-A-Part , I find good quality gauges added on to lots of older trucks . If your ammeter is going to the plus side when you rev. the engine , it's charging . Remember : often the brake pedal sticks just enough to keep the brake lights on and this can run the batery flat overnight too . I hope this helps....
