Folks-
Well things have been great with the van, as usual, such a good dependable rig, she loves these old Maine roads and I even get to use 4WD sometimes to get out of muddy situations!
Anyway I do have an issue. From time to time we don't get a door shut all the way and the light in the dash drains down the battery. I've had the same battery in the van since I bought it and its been jumped 5-6 times, every time I get a jump AAA tells me I should get a new battery. But I'm broke and I keep going.
Now we haven't had this issue because we have trained ourselves to ALWAYS look at the dash before we let the van sit to make sure the red door light is out.
On Saturday the battery was dead. So dead that the door light on the dash wouldn't even come on. I'm pretty sure the doors were shut but in this case I can't be positive as I parked the van right when we were having a potluck here, I wasn't thinking about that issue.
So we got a jump, AAA once again. The alternator works as the battery charged up and we drove the van on a few errands that day, shut it off, started it up etc.
Next morning my wife has to work early, guess what, the battery is dead. I'm SURE this time the doors were all shut and the dash light was out. Something else drained it.
Anyway it was only drained down to 8V or so and I had my boss come over and jumpstart the rig.
I thought well its time to get a new battery, thinking it was probably crapped out.
We bought an Autozone replacement battery, expensive, smaller than the one that was in there with only 500 CCA, but we're so broke its gotta be the one.
So we're thinking we're good to go. I checked the voltage with the van running to make sure the alternator was up to snuff, the voltage read just under 14V at idle.
I still checked the battery voltage every now and then and it seemed fine, but guess what! Here we go.....this morning my wife has to work EARLY, its still dark out, she comes in and tells me the van won't start! Arghhhhhhh!!!
Anyway I check the voltage on the battery, 8V. What!!?? So the only thing I could do was call my boss in again, he lives down the road, got a jump.
I instructed my wife to disconnect the battery ground strap when she got to work.
So.....what I know is the battery is okay, the alternator works (although I think I probably have been working it really hard with all this charging.....I can only hope it doesn't crap out too!!!)
I'm sure there must be a slow drain/short issue happening. I know its not as simple as us not shutting the doors and having the dash light on. We trained ourselves out of that.
Are there any common scenarios for located this short?
When my wife gets home I'm going to check for amperage draw with the ground disconnected, that way I can see what the draw is (any idea what it should be for normal usage, for the clock etc?)
I'm thinking I can just disconnect the ground strap every time the van is parked in the meantime, to keep the rig in dependable operating condition!!
Any thoughts would be awesome!
thanks,
mark in Maine