AFatTarantula
New Member
- Joined
- June 22, 2012
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Rhode Island
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1998 Explorer XLT
Hey,
I'm a n00b to this forum, but not to my Explorer. It's a 1998 Ford Explorer XLT that my parents bought brand new in December of 1997. It was given to me back in 2007 and ran and drove great. I drove it up to 2009 where I gave it back to my mother. She never used it and it sat for a year and then decided that she finally wanted to drive it. Now here's when the problems started arising:
-The truck had a current drain somewhere that her shop couldn't trace, so they installed a killswitch to disconnect the battery when it wasn't being driven so the battery wouldn't be drained. (eep.)
Apparently that wasn't the problem as the battery was "still draining" (in my mother's words.) so she took it to another mechanic who removed the killswitch, called the other mechanic an idiot, removed the fuse for the stock CD player and said the serpentine belt needed to be tightened more so the alternator can charge the battery since it still wasn't charging.
...So it's now 2012 and I re-inherited the truck after moving back to Rhode Island from Vegas and I really have no idea what these people did to the truck since I wasn't there. I bought a jumper pack to jump the battery to start the truck where I drove it for an hour or so to let the alternator charge the battery. I noticed when I was going to jump the battery that the two ground wires by the right hand side of the engine compartment attached to the control panel were completely cut. Since there was still 2 grounds running from the battery, I figured that the Explorer still should be able to charge the battery, especially since the battery is from May of 2010. Well it charged the battery a little bit, but not nearly enough to restart the truck after I shut it off. Plus the voltage gauge in the instrument panel was about 1/4" above "L". There's still juice left in the battery as the dome lights and all other electrical equipment currently work, but not enough to start the Explorer. Is this something as easy as a dead battery?
I'm a n00b to this forum, but not to my Explorer. It's a 1998 Ford Explorer XLT that my parents bought brand new in December of 1997. It was given to me back in 2007 and ran and drove great. I drove it up to 2009 where I gave it back to my mother. She never used it and it sat for a year and then decided that she finally wanted to drive it. Now here's when the problems started arising:
-The truck had a current drain somewhere that her shop couldn't trace, so they installed a killswitch to disconnect the battery when it wasn't being driven so the battery wouldn't be drained. (eep.)
Apparently that wasn't the problem as the battery was "still draining" (in my mother's words.) so she took it to another mechanic who removed the killswitch, called the other mechanic an idiot, removed the fuse for the stock CD player and said the serpentine belt needed to be tightened more so the alternator can charge the battery since it still wasn't charging.
...So it's now 2012 and I re-inherited the truck after moving back to Rhode Island from Vegas and I really have no idea what these people did to the truck since I wasn't there. I bought a jumper pack to jump the battery to start the truck where I drove it for an hour or so to let the alternator charge the battery. I noticed when I was going to jump the battery that the two ground wires by the right hand side of the engine compartment attached to the control panel were completely cut. Since there was still 2 grounds running from the battery, I figured that the Explorer still should be able to charge the battery, especially since the battery is from May of 2010. Well it charged the battery a little bit, but not nearly enough to restart the truck after I shut it off. Plus the voltage gauge in the instrument panel was about 1/4" above "L". There's still juice left in the battery as the dome lights and all other electrical equipment currently work, but not enough to start the Explorer. Is this something as easy as a dead battery?
