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Topic: seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls (Read 6291 times) previous topic - next topic

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

1990 ford bronco 351w EFI with 5speed (formerly e4od)

battery 1- old and replaced
battery 2- went in last nov
this battery confussed me often as such when the bronco sat for periods of time, i would have to roll start it.  recently the battery got so bad that you could not even roll start it due to the power being so low that the eec relay would not even energize.

Battery3-went in about feb
I thought about this long and hard and decided to trade it in because this battery also read as shorted.

battery 4-Replaced battery a month ago with a DEKA brand which started the truck up fine.  Now its dead.

here is what i have done during the period between battery 3 and 4

METER CHECKS
KOER- alt shows about 13.9v, battery shows 13.7vdc, no AC voltage present that i saw.  This is a .2v drop on the harness to battery.  I do not really have anythig telling me the alternator is bad but perhaps i should follow my own advice and swap batt and the alt as a matched set.

clamp on ammeter with everythng on possible shows about 44amps on pos battery cable.



Checked out various wring in the truck for wiring problems.  took door panels off and disconnected power door locks becaue they have not really be functional at all.

Checked power window switches because the pass will roll down by the pass sw but not up. The driver has to send the window up.

checked the rear window retract wiring by taking the panel off and working the window up and down checking for wires that may be rubbing.

with the key off after a good hard run on the engine, the battery shows about 12.4v.
If i leave it alone for a couple days, the battery will read 10.xx vdc

with my voltmeter connected to the battery attended to by a helper, i begin to pull one fuse at a time. I do this thinking the one who monitors the battery voltage reading will say,, "scott, i think the voltage is starting to climb".  If this happened, that would tell me i have identified the circuit that is loadind the battery down.
I also checked the radio for issues and unhooked the power to it hoping to hear my helper say "the battery voltage is increasing"
The above never happened.

when i have enough power to restart, i do so and shut off the truck.  upon shutdown, the battery will loose about a 10th of a volt across 15 -30 min so it makes for a difficult problem to isolate.

In a nutshell, the discharge is so small that it takes 3-4 days and the battery will be dead.

Im looking for any tricks to check for a trickle type drain on the battery and isolate the problem.

I am hopeful it is a faulty relay that is not fully cutting off when the key is off.

two days ago, the battery was again so dead that we could not even roll start it.  Just a slight boost of a few seconds from a jump start yields enough power to let it run on its own.

I wont even begin to try and pull codes at this time because im sure the KAP portion of the eec will be more than happy to mess with my head.

My point here is i would like to know any tricks anyone here has used for a slow drain.

My next test is to isolate circuits at the fuse link ciruits by disconnecting individual wires at the solenoid and let time take its course.

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #1 –
You know, just the other day, I started my car, shut it off and the fuel pump was still running. Had to jiggle the key in the ignition to get it to shut off. Have you checked yours, mabe its leaving something on.
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seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #2 –
Quote from: jcassity;216913

with my voltmeter connected to the battery attended to by a helper, i begin to pull one fuse at a time. I do this thinking the one who monitors the battery voltage reading will say,, "scott, i think the voltage is starting to climb".  If this happened, that would tell me i have identified the circuit that is loadind the battery down.
I also checked the radio for issues and unhooked the power to it hoping to hear my helper say "the battery voltage is increasing"
The above never happened.


instead of monitoring voltage during this procedure, try checkin for amperage draw.
gumby - beauty may fade, but stupid is forever!

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #3 –
Connect a ammeter in series with the neg batt cable and see how much current it's pulling when EVERYTHING is off... I believe something like 50ma is acceptable(for the electrically challenged, that's .05 amp)... If it's higher, start disconnecting circuits till you find the current drain...

The memory circuit in the OEM Ford radios is a common culprit... Also a slightly "leaky" diode in the alternator can cause the same...

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #4 –
try the fuse pulling test again. Only this time have the meter setup show amp draw. Then use the meter wired in line from the pos cable to the pos term on the batt. You should see that there is so much amps going thru the meter. Then as you pull the fuses there should be  a drop in amps until you get to 0. It  does sound like that you alt is bad and is draining the bat. Disconnect the alt wiring and see it that makes any difference.  Sorry I replied before I read the other post Oh well
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seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #5 –
Amp meter in series with the negative battery cable is a good idea if you are very careful.
If while you have the meter set up to moniter a small current , you do something to cause a high current, you can zap the meter.

A safer way is to hook a test light between the disconnected negative battery cable and the battery. If the it lights, too much drain. If you do something to cause a higher current it lights brighter.

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #6 –
Quote from: softtouch;216966
Amp meter in series with the negative battery cable is a good idea if you are very careful.
If while you have the meter set up to moniter a small current , you do something to cause a high current, you can zap the meter.

A safer way is to hook a test light between the disconnected negative battery cable and the battery. If the it lights, too much drain. If you do something to cause a higher current it lights brighter.


Not a bad thought, BUT you need to have a idea of the current demand of the lamp... Something on the order of 100-150ma would be good...Unfortunately, I believe even something like a #194 draws twice that amount...

On second thought a #194 lamp in SERIES with the meter would serve as protection for the meter... Of course a good meter will have a overload circuit or fuse to protect it...

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #7 –
I should qualify my suggestion by saying if the drain is enough to light the light, that is the way to go. Otherwise it's back to the meter.

My daughter had a GEO Metro about 10 years ago that took 4 days of sitting to run the battery down. It was drawing 10 times the current it should have. 500ma instead of 50ma. I finally tracked down to a "safety" module under the dash that controlled the chimes, locking it in park until you pushed the brake and operating the automatic seat belts.
 

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #8 –
or a little LED , they draw .3 to .6v and if there is more than that,, i suppose blowing it tells me i have current,,,lol

Im going to boost the battery and repeat the test.

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #9 –
My test light is not homemade. Don't know what bulb it has in it.

If I ground out the positive battery it lights.
If I open the door to turn on the dome light the test light lights.

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #10 –
Quote from: jcassity;216978
or a little LED , they draw .3 to .6v and if there is more than that,, i suppose blowing it tells me i have current,,,lol

Im going to boost the battery and repeat the test.

BUT they don't draw enough current... A led will light on just 2-3ma and would light on the NORMAL 50 ma draw... In fact I'd figure you'd fry the LED, as they require a current limiting resistor...

Quote from: softtouch;217004
My test light is not homemade. Don't know what bulb it has in it.

If I ground out the positive battery it lights.
If I open the door to turn on the dome light the test light lights.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to test current draw of your light with a ammeter...

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #11 –
I always have heard best way is to pull fuses one by one to see what happens.
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seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #12 –
Quote from: daboss351;217024
I always have heard best way is to pull fuses one by one to see what happens.

That would be all well and good if you have about 3 - 4 solid days to stand around waiting to see.  The results of pulling each fuse were not instantanious so it was difficult to isolate.  using the test light worked out perfect.




Progress

I got to thinking about this whole,, if the draw is too small to light a big bulb,, ect ect.

I went out and pulled out of the box one of my fresh napa bulbs for illuminating the dash headlamp switch.  Now folks,, thats a tiny bulb.

I went out today and proceeded to redo everything i did before.

I pulled all the wires off the primary side of the solenoid.
I decided that if there is a draw, I will see sparks from the battery cable to one or more of the secondary feeds.

I did!!!

I found that there were minor sparks when the larger yellow wire was touched to the battery wire.  This could be one of two things:
My EEC KAP
or
My problem!!

Moving forward,, the larger test light bulb i had there in the third pic did not light up so i went with a very very small bulb.  I use that larger one for injector blink testing or pulling codes ,, i use a buzzer now for codes though instead of the bulb.

when i connected it up as shown, the bulb glowed (pic 2).
I had to jam the door switches to simulate the doors being closed.

so,, with nothing on and both doors closed, this little bulb was happy to glow just a wee bit although the photo makes it appear it was more.

Now, to isolate the exact circuit,,,,,,
pulling one fuse at a time i was able to isolate things down to Fuse 8 on the bronco.  Fuse 8 is dome, courtisy, radio, glove box.

I proceeded to isolate so i disconnected both door switches,, light still on.
I disconnected the dome light harness,, light still on.
I held off on disconnecting the rear hatch access harness because the radio was just too easy to get to.

I unhooked the radio and light goes off as the picture shows in pic 3.

so,,,,,, that little shiny metal box that dangles off the radio,, perhaps a filter or something must have something going a little wrong on the inside.  It was just a tiny bit warm but i suppose that may have been my current draw.

Assembled things back together and drove the truck for a while.  we will see how the next couple days go to see if it starts.

to be continued but i think its solved.

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #13 –
below is the problem i believe:D

time for a new cd player.

This was difficult to figure out just by using the meter. Unfortunatly, i no longer have a meter that is not "clamp on" so i had no option but to substitute in a bulb.  I was determined to make some real progress on this problem today so hopefully this is it.

when we gut things here in west virginia, we like to hang em up first,,lol

seriously at my limit with this,,advise pls

Reply #14 –
Quote from: jcassity;217042
b. Unfortunatly, i no longer have a meter that is not "clamp on" so i had no option but to substitute in a bulb. 

Time to stop at Harbor Freight ad pick up 3-4 of those cheap Chinese meters when they are on sale for $2.99... Yeah I know you don't buy that stuff, but with a global economy it ain't going away...

A big plus is when you smoke one, it just goes in the can and you have a extra set of test leads...

Didn't I mention radio in my 1st post??? Can't say I've seen a aftermarket unit screw up, but have seen two OEMs with a similar problem...

Quote from: daboss351;217024
I always have heard best way is to pull fuses one by one to see what happens.

Maybe for the shade tree mechanic, but I can guarantee a well trained tech uses a ammeter or at least a light he knows approx what the approx current draw is by the brightness of the bulb...