Bowtie Brody's Namesake 96 454

[BNielsen]

Do you have a different battery you could swap in and see how things go? I am not familiar with the Odyssey's, but maybe it went bad...?

I doubt it, it was perfectly fine when I drove to work, and then from work to NAPA, unless something happened on the ride home from Napa it shouldn't be bad
@df2x4, have you ever experienced something like this?
I do have two DieHards in the crew cab, I suppose I could steal one if it comes down to it.

 

[letitsnow]

I swapped in the AD244 a month or two ago now.

If the battery passes a load test at an auto store, I'd then look into what regulates the amps that your alternator puts out.

 

[BNielsen]

If the battery passes a load test at an auto store, I'd then look into what regulates the amps that your alternator puts out.

The battery tested fine prior, I'll have to wait until my wife gets home since the truck is out of commission; and the AD244 should default to 14.5 amps factory, at least that's what I thought?

 

[df2x4]

@df2x4, have you ever experienced something like this?

So to clarify, battery resting voltage is low and you're getting what appears to be intermittent charging? You said the voltage would jump around when the truck is running right? I've had that happen once in the Suburban. It turned out to be the battery cable connections. They looked OK to my eyes, but I cleaned and reassembled them and the problem went away. I did have an Optima YellowTop develop a weird internal problem in the red truck many years ago. It would behave normally, and then just refuse to start out of nowhere. Pretty sure one of the side terminal connections had cracked internally, you could wiggle the cables and get power to come back.

My Odysseys have been rock solid, I've only replaced one of them and IIRC it was around eight years old. Still started the Suburban... It was just reading low on my cheapo Harbor Freight load tester. The one in my red truck is older than that and still kicking.

Speaking of which... If you want to test the health of the battery yourself those load testers are pretty affordable. I think mine was around $40 and I've used it more than I thought I would. The Odysseys are right on the limit of the cranking amps the cheap ones are designed to test (mine smoked pretty spectacularly the first time I cranked it up) but they seem to work fine as long as you can get a solid connection with the flimsy clamps. I just looked for them on the Harbor Freight site but it looks like the listing is gone. Strange, but you can some that are similar on Amazon if you search "500A Carbon Load Tester." IMO a good tool to have around, especially if you have multiple vehicles that use 12V batteries.

www.amazon.com/VCT-Battery-Alternator-Starter-1000CCA/dp/B082BHB9SH

 

[BNielsen]

So to clarify, battery resting voltage is low and you're getting what appears to be intermittent charging? You said the voltage would jump around when the truck is running right? I've had that happen once in the Suburban. It turned out to be the battery cable connections. They looked OK to my eyes, but I cleaned and reassembled them and the problem went away. I did have an Optima YellowTop develop a weird internal problem in the red truck many years ago. It would behave normally, and then just refuse to start out of nowhere. Pretty sure one of the side terminal connections had cracked internally, you could wiggle the cables and get power to come back.

My Odysseys have been rock solid, I've only replaced one of them and IIRC it was around eight years old. Still started the Suburban... It was just reading low on my cheapo Harbor Freight load tester. The one in my red truck is older than that and still kicking.

Speaking of which... If you want to test the health of the battery yourself those load testers are pretty affordable. I think mine was around $40 and I've used it more than I thought I would. The Odysseys are right on the limit of the cranking amps the cheap ones are designed to test (mine smoked pretty spectacularly the first time I cranked it up) but they seem to work fine as long as you can get a solid connection with the flimsy clamps. I just looked for them on the Harbor Freight site but it looks like the listing is gone. Strange, but you can some that are similar on Amazon if you search "500A Carbon Load Tester." IMO a good tool to have around, especially if you have multiple vehicles that use 12V batteries.

www.amazon.com/VCT-Battery-Alternator-Starter-1000CCA/dp/B082BHB9SH

Battery charge was low and I was experiencing no charge coming from the alternator; which led to me finding the melted fuse; after replacing all that the truck drove fine only to not start at all after getting home, and it melted the negative post cover.
I like the looks of that tester, I definitely need one since I have so many batteries to keep maintained.

I did take a close look and it appeared to me that the fender to battery ground cable was a little loose, would that particular ground cause any problem? The big ground that goes to the front of the engine would ll

 

[BeXtreme]

Battery charge was low and I was experiencing no charge coming from the alternator; which led to me finding the melted fuse; after replacing all that the truck drove fine only to not start at all after getting home, and it melted the negative post cover.
I like the looks of that tester, I definitely need one since I have so many batteries to keep maintained.

I did take a close look and it appeared to me that the fender to battery ground cable was a little loose, would that particular ground cause any problem? The big ground that goes to the front of the engine would ll

If your ground terminal was getting hot enough to melt, it is bad. Either the cable has a problem internally or you have a loose/bad connection to the battery or the frame. First, check for voltage drop in the ground cable(put one probe on the negative terminal and one probe on the frame connection and see if it reads voltage). If it reads anything more than about .2v, replace the entire ground cable. If it doesn't read a high voltage, remove all of it, clean the heck out of all connections and make sure you have clean bare metal at all contact points and then reassemble.

 

[letitsnow]

the AD244 should default to 14.5 amps factory, at least that's what I thought?

I've learned not to trust that. Now when replacing any alternator - first thing I do is see what voltage the battery shows while revving the motor.

Any more than 14.7 v and that alternator goes back to the store.

 

[BNielsen]

So good news, I solved the ground issue, a combination of loose grounds and a loose battery bolt led to my having issues and things getting hot.
Unfortunately, now the side post is not grounding. Top post will ground out perfectly fine but side post has nothing.
I'm at a loss. Guess I'll steal one of the DieHards from the crew to continue diagnosing *****.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Unless you're doing a factory restoration, chop off those side post terminals and go top post. You'll never regret it.

 

[BNielsen]

Unless you're doing a factory restoration, chop off those side post terminals and go top post. You'll never regret it.

I'm regretting not going top post.
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The battery side post terminal is grounding now, but the truck won't run unless I give it some throttle, and as soon as I let off it dies and the battery light comes on. I tested fuel pressure and it's got it, could it be that I shorted out this battery and it drags the truck down under idle?