The last couple of days my trucks been dead after sitting overnight, and it went dead on me while sittin in it waitin to meet a buddy and listening to the radio a couple nights ago. Usually I could let it sit all day with the radio on so something must be up with it.

I'm wondering if my battery is going downhill. it's a Motomaster Eliminator from Canadian Tire, 900 CCA, and it's only 9 months old but I'm thinkin I might have screwed something up last weekend. My buddy got his Dakota wet out in the woods and it took a ton of boosting from mine before it finally started again... I never had any issues immediately after that, but it's popped up in the last few days. I guess it's more like 'hoping' that it's the battery, as it's under warranty

I checked the voltage when running and it's right at 14V, a tad under 14.5, but it has no issues when running, no battery light and all lights etc seem fine. It was dead this morning, so I put the charger on it and after only about half an hour it would crank and start fine, just as good and strong as ever. It's a small oldddd charger so I would think it would take a lot longer than that to give it that much charge... I'm lettin it sit for a bit now and I am regularly checking the battery voltage to see how fast it drops, and then I'm gonna charge it and load test it.

Anyone think this *might* be a charging problem, or does it sound like a bad battery?

I can't rule out that I have a drain on the system somewheres, but I've been searching and haven't found anything yet. Any tips and tricks in the electrical department are welcomed

 

Unhook it and check with a multimeter, then check again in the morning. That's easiest way to see if something is draining it.

If it were a charging problem then it would lose power while the truck was running and not when it was off.

Read about how to test the IOD fuse in the service manual. Pages 8f-15 and 8f-16.

 

Good call on unhooking it sheriff, I'm gonna do that I'm pretty sure it's the battery now though, it dropped to about 8-9 volts on the load tester and won't start again already... And the voltage at the battery drops to ~3 volts when attempting to crank it... It's charging again now then I'll try your idea sheriff

 

If it's not a gelled electrolyte battery and you can get the caps off, take a hydrometer to each of the six cells after a good charge. That'll tell the story every time. If the specific gravity is too much lower than what it ought to be, it's a goner.

If you don't know the battery's actual specs, you can safely assume that an SG of 1.265 at full charge and 20C is about right. 1.225 or lower is certain trouble.

If you suspect a charging problem, use a clamp-on ammeter rather than a guess, and if you find it's not charging continue troubleshooting rather than guessing until you've narrowed it down to one specific component that's failed. It's cheaper and surer than replacing everything hoping to get lucky.

 

sounds like you have yourself a dead cell in your battery. it will still charge and pass the test because it can still allow the charge to pass through the dead cell but as soon as something like a charger or your alternator stops pushin the electrons throught that dead cell, it starts draining that cell which will make it drop below starting voltage.

 

that what I was kinda thinkin ryan, maybe a dead cell..... I unhooked it last night and am about to go out and see if it's dead or not.... if it is in fact dead I guess it's off to canadian tire for an in the parking lot battery change I'll let yas knowwww

 

Well I charged her up this morning enough to get it started and I just got back from canadian tire, the battery was in fact bad They threw it on their battery testing machine and confirmed that it is screwed... I never thought to ask what exactly was wrong with it, but she's workin great again now with the new free replacement battery in there I was some glad to hear that it was bad, I pulled it out in the parking lot and if I didn't get the new one I woulda needed a boost to get er goin again

 

Glad to hear you got it fixed!

 

Good to hear that you found the problem, I've not had much luck with CTC batteries. 4 of them went bad all in different vehicles and tractor, all were about 9 to 18 months old. Load tested the batteries, hydrometer tested to confirm all had dead cells. All charging systems were working good, very limited boosting.
Replaced with GNB marine batteries, last couple of years, no issues.
I had enough battery problems that I invested in a load tester which has been very helpful.

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