Hi, I have a friend that has a 98 Durango SLT with a 5.3L auto. The problem is the battery drains immediately or so he says. The battery died he replaced it with a brand new one, that one lasted about a month, it died, he took it back and they replaced it. he installed it, started truck once then tried to restart it right away and he said it was dead. he took it back and they gave him another new battery. Truck started one then dead again. he says he can take battery out, put a trickle charge on it over night and reconnect it and it will start one time and then everything is dead. I think this may be either a bad ignition switch, ignition wire or a bad PCM. Anyone have other suggestions I can have him look at? It's actually a nice truck very minimal rust and it only has 159k on the clock. very strong motor and trans. Thanks for any help.

 

If u need a pcm on a stick dak and cant find a manual pcm u can use an auto pcm and ground one wire on the harness and it will work perfect. besides engine light. just run a new female pin in the pcm connector black 13. this controls park nuetral switch. grounds this and bam works. no more defuel at 2,400 rpm.

 

Sounds like bad battery connections (arcing maybe), a bad alternator not charging the battery, or maybe even a bad starter.

 

You need to probe the charging circuit with a multitester and make sure the alternator is working as it sounds like the engine is running off of battery alone which would be the fastest way to drain the battery other than a dead short.

 

Thank you for the suggestions, I'll get over there tomorrow and see if it's cables, connections or what. All I can say for sure is that it'll start, then shut off and try to restart and there's no juice. you cannot even jump the truck. the battery has to be removed recharged and then it'll start one time. I'll take my DVM and a booster with me and see what happens.

 

I'm thinking a bad battery wire/connection/terminal.

1. Check and clean the main terminals.
2. Look for broken wires at the terminal/wire connections.
3. Look for a burned spot or corrosion on the wires.
4. Remove and clean the main lugs, both positive and negative.
5. Sometimes you will hear a clicking sound from the center of the dash, this is the CTM on that year = bad connection.
6. Bad starter/coil.