What the heck is going on? - solved for the moment

On Sunday I started the Fleetwood and backed it up a car length to get shade so I could wax it.   Fine.  Same when I moved it back.
Didn't drive anywhere.  TOnight went out to go somewhere and the car is DEAD, not even dim lights.  Multimeter says 2.7 volts.  
DIdn't leave any lights on or anything.   Pull out the battery charger and as it's late I put it on the 55A fast charge and go inside to eat dinner.  30 min later I come out and still no lights.  Multimeter now says 2.4.   I could hear the charger humming and I had lights. on it.

Also on the lower amp setting it said the battery was charged.  

Is the battery just completely toast now?  Never have see this before.
No date code on the battery.

SEE POST on 8/18 for solution.

If it has vent caps, did you open them up and see the electrolyte level?

they are full. Talked to Chris (PO) last night and he never touoch battery so we've determined it's over 2.5 years old and the likelyhood the dealer touched it is 0% so it's time was up.

Just never had one go overnight like that before. Will be swapping it out here in about half an hour.

Luckily I bought a battery out of a wrecked FW so I had it handy. 10 min later she's back in action

My 94 Fleetwood Hearse did the same thing. When it died, I couldn't charge it, jump start it, nothing. I assumed it was internal failure in battery.

Batteries seem to fail in the strangest ways!

So the battery that came out is only about 2.5 years old (date sticker on the side) and the new one is just about 2 years old and dead now too. It sat for 8.5 days and read .78 volts. I took it out and then it read 1.6 volts so there is a drain in the car..... I have it on the charger right now.

Pisser is I drove the hell out of it last week putting close to 2000 miles on it in 5 days and it was fine (except for the stupid headlight thing)......

Car keeps acting like this I'll sell the damn thing...

Throw a huge shut off on it if you really NEED to …..

I tried charging the battery over night and it didn't work so I think my charger is bad, so I take them to the idiot's auto parts store (Advance) as its right around the corner, to be tested. They test both and declare since they only have about 8 volts they have bad cells. I'm thinking they are just discharched. I call my buddy and go borrow his battery charger. It works and 3 hours later one battery is back in the car and she is running. The other is out side still charging and I'm sure it is still good too.


So what's draining my power? I start to wonder if the low beam issue is somehow related (short in the connection somewhere is also causing my draw down as the headlights are always hot. I tried to switch the horn and headlight relays to check that and noticed that the headlight relay was hot.....the relay was still good and the pitting in the known good horn relay (same part number) didn't change anything.

More investigative work to be done.

In the time being, put in a battery saver. You know that thing that connect to the battery and cuts power when it gets down to a certain voltage. It won't fix your problem, but it will save your batteries.

Superior Finish wrote:

In the time being,  put in a battery saver. You know that thing that connect to the battery and cuts power when it gets down to a certain voltage. It won't fix your problem, but it will save your batteries.

true but I'm going to start driving it to work more often to keep the battery up. it's good for a couple to a few days

Put an ammeter between the battery and one of the cables. Note the reading. Start pulling fuses one at a time, check the reading each time. When the number drops, you've found your drain.

Or, you have a bad alternator.

jayoldschool wrote:

Put an ammeter between the battery and one of the cables.  Note the reading.  Start pulling fuses one at a time, check the reading each time.  When the number drops, you've found your drain.

Or, you have a bad alternator.

I doubt it's the alternator.  I will use the ammeter tomorrow (have to go out tonight with family) as I drove it at 9PM last night for half an hour and when I went outside 10 min ago it's completely dead again.  I guess the good news is its a hard fault now, so should be easy to track.

Last night while driving home I reached up under the dash and felt the relay center and one of them (most likely the headlight as before) was hot to the touch.  I had been driving for only a couple of minutes so I'm thinking that relay is being overdrawn.

The PITA part is I already gave back Flash Gumby's battery charger, so I'll have to swap in one from Ruby to test with tomorrow as my Amazon ordered one won't be here until Wed.  

oh and I completely disconnected the battery so whatever is left in it wont drain down.

So I put a fresh battery in and hooked it up. The damn blower stared running immediately. Never did that before. Pulled the fuse for that and had 0.0 amp draw....dammit.

Managed to drop and lose the 25 amp fuse for the blower and then the thunderstorm starred...crap have to check in the AM..this getting frustrating

I had a similar issues years back during the Fall. Service guy kept throwing batteries and alternators at it. I came out one morning with frost on the ground and car, but the back window steaming.

 The rear window defroster switch was stuck on, defective, and draining the battery.

Well the fact it went to zero amp draw after I pulled the fuse makes me wonder if the blower resistor went. I replaced. It with a JY unit only a couple of months ago....

Probably shouldn't have waxed it.....damn.

Okay, so the short answer to my battery drain was the blower motor resistor.

The long answer is, I'm not sure it's licked yet. As I have been having electrical problems with the car for awhile now.

As many know, it's been eating high/low beam switches (3 to date), and this is the second blower motor resistor in 6 months. Also, the driver seat power only goes front to back not up or down, sometimes the trunk light works, etc. I do believe there is another issue somewhere in the car, maybe it's the voltage regulator putting out too much, I dunno yet....