After my sits for 8-10 hour it takes forever for the car to start, if not I have to jump it off. Brand new optima red top, altenator checked (2). starter checked, engine ground checked(new), battery ground checked , I mean what else could it be. After driving around the car wont idle very well at red lights. I never had 12 volts when idling

 

Are you using large enough battery cable (4 gauge or thicker)

 

Yea what size pos and neg batt. cables are u using, and where did u ground the battery to? where did u ground the enginebay ground cable to?

 

I used a zero gauge when I did mine. Battery being dead after 8-10 hours sounds less like a charging problem and more like a leakage problem. Something is using electricity when the car is turned off...

 

Where is the negative cable being grounded on?
Have you scraped away all the paint from the chassis before connecting this ground cable?
How long is the negative cable?



-Ted

 

Have you doine a battery relocation how-to yet Ted? *hint hint*

 

Sorry for taking so long to reply. Im using 1 gauge cables, the battery is grounded to the chassis, the paint has been scraped away. The cable is about 10" to a 1 ft.
Im not very knowledge about electrics but im learning. Ok, If my altenator charged fine according to the machine they tested it on, would there be a chance that it could be draining my battery(with ignition switch off)?
What is the best way to go about this problem?
Im going to fully charge the battery and let the car set and begin to disconnect things over night to see whats causing the drainage.
This would be something that use lots of juice right?

 

Not neccesarily, leaving an interior light on will drain your battery in that period of time.

 

also, usually when I first turn the key, nothing happens(just a "click") sometime I can do that 2 or 3 times before the engine decides to turnover.

 

Wouldn't that mean the alternator or a cable goin' to it? $hit, I don't know. I'm stumpted.

 

It's half way done!
I need to retake some pics of the wire routing, but the rest of it is done.
Hopefully I can get that all done by this weekend.


-Ted

 

Great! My battery relocation has eaten two red optimas in four years and I don't think it was done right to begin with. Eager to see your How-To Ted!

 

I'm guessing we're talking about a FC

 

do you have a digital multimeter? if not go spend 15 bucks, then drive the car a bit until the battery shows 12.5 volts or more with the key off. let it sit overnight and check the voltage. if it is measurably less you have a short. you now have eliminated a bunch of things. please let us know.
battery relocation is a super win win option. congrats on doing it. i did mine in 99 and still run the same optima battery.

howard coleman

 

This is how I normally wire up my battery relocation systems...
It should be similar for FD.



Yeah, sorry, it's mainly for FC's.

Make sure your terminals on the battery are tight.  I've found that the relocated battery doesn't have the tension like the stock location battery terminals, and they tend to easily disconnect just driving down the road!


-Ted

 

Generally that means your starter solenoid is almost shot.

 

I had a friend of mine hook this machine up to my cables(I dont know what this device was called), the one that reads the current in the cables. He told me my car is using more amps than the alt is putting back in, so I believe this is a alt problem. I have another alt here somewhere monday Im going to swap and see what happens.

 

Ammeter


-Ted

 

ok, its not the +cable that runs to the battery, its not the altenator. Any suggestions??
i was talking to a starter repair guy and he said that my problem could be a relay switch not closing. If so How do I check one to see if it bad?

 

If it's an FD, about half of them that I have seen with battery relocation to the back have problems with the chassis ground. I had the same problem you are describing and fixed it by running the ground all the way back up to the engine bay.

 

This morning, I remove the battery fromm the back of the car, placed it up front, used 10" +/- cables, the car did the same thing.
At the end of the wire that goes to the alt, has some corrosion-like stuff on the strans in wire, it looks somewhat bad. Could I run a jumper wire from the alt to a + source of power to see maybe if thats the cuase of my problem?
Also the end of the wire looks as if It once got to hot(strans look burnt). The black piece on the back of the alt looks like it has been cooked at the end. I had the black piece replace a few weeks ago though.

 

disconnect the neg terminal on the battery
take a multi meter set it to mili-amps
connect one meter lead to the battery - post
connect the other to the neg terminal you removed
it should be less than .1 amp about .04
anymore and you have a drain. which you can find by removing fuses until it goes away and you see the drain dissapear. the alt should put out at least 13.5 volts while the car is running. no need to remove it to test it just put a meter on the battery while the car is running and it should be over 13.5 prob 14.xx

the click could be a starter issue or a low batt charge prob. what is the batt CCA rating

 

This may seem dumb, but how do I operrate the multi meter? I bought one and the place I bought it no one knew how to operate it either.

 

ok, The battery drop from 12.65v to 11.4 with + terminal off in a 9 hour period.

 

I had a drainage of 1.6A, traced it to BTN main fuse, which can to the ROOM 10A, which lead to the cd player,
Thanks everybody.