Well, my Optima Red Top battery seems to loose charge after about 4-5 days if I dont drive the car. If I charge her up with a battery charger the battery works fine and the car can be started. Also, if I drive her every few days the battery seems fine since my 200Amp alternator seems to bring the charge back up.

Now, the real question is how do you track down which peice of equipment is drawing all that current to kill the battery in 4-5 days? Or could it be the battery that cant hold the charge?

 

Do you have a multi-meter? The manual should give you a run down on how to do a 'draw test'. This will help you track down a faulty circuit.

 

I got a multi-meter! Now the real question is where do I start checking for current draw and what I do reference off of?

 

Un bolt the - battery terminal, put - to that and + to the + battery lead. Then you should see a draw, start pulling fuses till it stops. Its been a while since Ive done this, but Im sure thats how it goes...

 

I am thinking it is your battery.

 

Are you telling me to measure the Voltage of the battery without it connected to the car? Then connect it back up and see what the new voltage is? From there, I start pulling fuses until the voltage stablizes?

Or do you mean to put the meter on the Amps setting and put the meter inline with the main ground? So, it would look like this

(- neg battery) -> (-) Meter -> (+) Meter -> Existing (-) batter cable terminal

If I remember right the max my meter could take was either 2Amps or 10Amps max. Do you think I will be drawing more current then this if I run the meter inline with the negative battery terminal?

 

Care to explain why u think its the battery? It works fine when I charge it and when I drive the car. If the battery had a internal short what would be the symptoms and how do u troubleshoot the problem?

 

Sorry, could have been a little clearer.

Unbolt the negative terminal of the battery, put your - multimeter lead to this. Then put your positive lead to the still bolted on + lead at the battery. You might notice a slight drain, it will usually trickle down slowly. This is where another set of hands come in handy. Start pulling fuses till the voltage stops dropping. You can replace a fuse after you find out it isnt the culprit. Once you verfiy the circuit, you can trouble shoot from there.

 

Hmm... let me see if this is right.
***Multimeter set to AMPS (Current)
(-) term of batt (cable or term?)-> (-) multimeter -> (+) multimeter -> (+) term of batter (cable or term?)


How do you create a ground if your your negative battery term isn't grounded if the (-) side of the multimeter is connected up to the negative lead? I must still be reading your description wrong cause what it sounds to me is you just created a loops using the positive term. Where is the ground that you need to read voltage? If the meter is inline with say the positive or neg. term then it would be reading current draw but if were just running it parallel we would be reading voltage. Care to explain it a little bit more for me?

 

Im not sure why exactly you have to undo the ground from the battery, but ya do. Its grounded to the body/chassis anyway, so the MM will still be grounded.

 

But if nothing is connected up to the negative side of the battery terminal how do the electrons flow from one terminal to the other? It doesnt matter if the negative terminal cable is connected to the chasis because no electrons would make it to the negative term on the batt.

Am i misunderstanding something? Anyone else want to chime in and clear this up for me? Thanks!