Let’s pretend this battery clamp is your positive battery clamp. While we're pretending, let’s say my tester is your tester. When it is hooked up like this...any voltage drain will make the test light glow. Bigger the drain the brighter the light will get. A small voltage drain will cause the light to glow very dim. If no glowing is happening then you don't have a short and you need to check out your charging system.
Forgot to say make sure your clock/memory wire on your stereo is disconnected and the door closed so the dome light won’t be on.
Ok yea thats what i thought you were saying to do so i have a drain then have to just dive in today and find where it is
Double check the wiring harness from the alt to the reg. Even if something is draining the battery you should be seeing a charge. I would take the harness completely off and check continuity on each wire.
ok i just got back in side rewired the alternator and the volt reg which for some reason or another the battery wire and the F wire on the alter was swapped idk if i swapped it or if it was like that before and i just never saw it but i rewired it all and put it all pack on the car and hooked up the car by jumpers to my parents car and got her running but my alt light is now on..??? my gauge was reading 13 then i unhooked the jumpers and went back into the car to look at the light and the gauge and the alt light is still on and my gauge dropped to 12v ( keep in mind my battery is not fully charged from it being drained all night ) and as i turned on lights and turn signals the volts dropped and didnt charge back up ????? why is this now im even more lost all the wires are right now and everything alt has its own ground wire now and everything is new..... also i did the light test again and it doesnt light up anymore so i fixed the drain now for a charging issue
If you have one of those "big box" auto parts stores nearby, maybe you should take the alternator to them and have it checked. You could also get your battery load tested to see if it is really in good shape. If you have a problem in any of your main parts of your charging system, you could chase "ghosts" for a long long time. I had a car that I tested the output of the alternator, while the engine was running, and it read 14.3 and then I went down to the battery and I got 12 volts. It turned out that the battery cable was coroded within the crimped on end. No matter how much you cleaned the terminal or cable end, it still read the same low volts. Changed the cable and it then read 14.3 at the battery.
Double check that the batt terminal on the alternator reads 12v when the engine is off and that the A terminal on the regulator has 12v as well when the engine is off.
the battery is 4k miles new and the alternator/ volt reg i just bought all of it i got tested again yesterday and is all good the starter solenoid and the positive battery cable i replaced 1k miles ago the negative cable i havent replaced yet b/c i cant find one that will go from the negative post to the frame and then to the block. and i just went out there and my battery is making 12volts and the A wire in the volt regulator is making 12 when the car is off
they tested the alt ( its a new one and made well more than enough volts i think it was like 16v ) and i swapped the regulator i just bought for another new one
i replaced the voltage regulator yesterday and swapped the wires back around this morning you think the volt reg is dead?
I would say its a very good possibility. If everything is wired correctly and the alt tests good. Do your wires to the regulator still plug in with a connector or do you have to connect each wire individually. I would definately take a few minutes to recheck all of the wires are where they are supposed to be.
they still plug in with the plug that holds them all.. ok then well i guess i take it back and swap it out again and see what happens then thanks man
