Thread: Battery drain problemw/ 64 Chevy C-10

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Yep, we had a Buick one time that if you drove it every day you were ok, but if it sat over a weekend the battery was dead Monday morning. My ex-wife LOVED when that happened and she was going to work. We finally tracked it down to a bad alternator. I think the diode was letting current feed back through it and draining the battery just slightly. We replaced the alternator, no more problem. Have it checked out.

You can also remove your negative battery cable and put a test light between the post and the removed cable end. If the light glows at all you have something pulling current. You might get a faint glow from the memory in your radio, but if it is still on you can start pulling fuses until you find the offending accessory.

Don

Had this problem with before and after I changed the altenator.

Batteries can also short out internally and slowly drain down. Charge it up, pull it out of the car or disconnect the battery cables for a couple of days, then load test it, or just put it back in and see if it held it's charge without being connected to anything.

If that fails, do the negative battery test I mentioned before to find the source of your drain.


Don

Oh, and you could have gotten two bad alternators in a row, especially if they are rebuilt ones. Lots of times the rebuilders find one problem and quit there, and there is a secondary problem they miss. One time I had a new (rebuilt) alternator fail, so I took it back. Second one did same thing. Parts guy says very rudely that I have something wrong with my car that is destroying them, but he will give me one last one. I had him test it on his machine first just to be sure, and he set that one aside. Then he pulled a second one off the shelf to test, and set it aside. Finally after 3 he found one that worked! I couldn't pass that opportunity up and said to him "something on my car is destroying them, huh? Would you like to apologize now?" He did. lol