The dancing battery gauge

[zpratt25]

Recently put on a light bar and light pod set up. Soddered all wires togeather, threaded the wires where I could, put it all togeather and yay. New lighting set up that will light to woods up any where I go. I returned to the truck the next morning to take it for a drive and found that it wouldn't turn over. Lights on dash came on for a brief second then off. I thought I left my PA on or something so I grabbed my jump box, let is sit for a minute or two and she coughed once or twice but fired up. I went for a drive to the gas station about 5 miles away, turned it off, filled up and the same thing. No start. Used the jump box again, drove about 15 miles this time. In this time, the battery gauge was shaking back and forth between the top of "normal" and the bottom of "normal". I got home, turned it off, waited, tried to turn on..... Annnnd. Nothing again.

My PA and light bar are wired direct to the battery. I don't have a multimeter unfortunately so this is going to be a lot of guess and check. I'm thinking its either a bad altenator(its only a 95 AMP AutoZone altenator) or a bad battery(its a cheep walmart battery). The gauge does shake when I turn my headlights and A.c. on but not really when I turn the PA or lightbar/pods on.

Any help is much appreciated


At least she looks cool

 

[Rhett]

Hey your lights look good. You know the 93-94 Limited alternator is 130 amp and it fits any 1st gen regardless of submodel -- and you can get that alt at any decent auto parts store. Just tell them you have a 94 Limited.

As for the hard start the following morning, it almost sounds like there is something draining it. Make sure there is no draw on any of the new lights you put in. Multimeters are pretty cheap these days.

If you didn't do it, I would recommend putting an inline fuse into your new positive wires going to the battery.

 

[zpratt25]

The harness the lighting set up has a 30 amp fuse coming near off the battery.

I got in contact with the former owner, asking if he had suggestions and he mentioned he had 2 options when buying a battery. He could be smart and buy the OEM spec one or he could buy a lesser battery that still fit but had smaller amounts of cold cranking amps. So I started the explorer up and removed the negative terminal and sure enough, she still ran. Still need to get a new battery which won't cost me to much with my connections but I sure as heck won't buy that battery again..

Gonna try it and will report back

 

[zpratt25]

Battery didn't work....

 

[Muddigger88]

Basically removing the lead to the battery is verification that your alternator is working to power the vehicle.

Second on Rhett on getting a good multimeter and testing your parasitic amperage draw. Set it to mA and get to work pulling fuses. If you need a walk through on a parasitic draw test, hit the inbox.

It has been a while since I have been on the forum, so I am not sure if there is a good post about performing such testing.

Don't know if the issue was found. Also, sorry for dragging up an old thread.

 

[zpratt25]

Rookie.. Rookie.. ROOKIE!
Sorry it has been so long!

When I popped the new battery in, I made the dumb mistake of not running it... Thinking I could just plug and play. Lucky for me, after driving her to work disappointed and frustrated, she turned over when I went to move her and we haven't had an issue since!

Working on brake issues now for my next adventure and the upcoming Washington Gambler 500 but all in due time right...

Thanks for looking out