Yeah I'm gonna keep trying to start every couple days, just tried again 24 hrs after last start and it fired right up. Unfortunately what I needed it for this weekend has come and passed, I didn't trust it to start in the middle of nowhere. Do you know about the door lock problem? Fob doesn't work and I can unlock drivers side with the key, open the rest of the doors with the button, but I have to use the button on the passenger side to lock them. Do you think the TIPM "all doors lock" M38 fuse could be it? I'm going to replace it anyway when I get some fuses. I need a new fob anyway so thinking about biting the bullet and getting one made at the local lock shop. They did one for my wife and it works.

 

For the door locks, I have no idea..... Haven't dealt with anything that new, and am not familiar with their foibles, or how things are *supposed* to work.

 

I changed the fuse for the door locks for the hell of it and they worked 5 times with the button then dead again. The fuse isn't blown. The load tester got here early and it says good-need charge, cranking good, under load good. So I assume the alternator is working. I'm charging again then will test again in the morning, but I'm afraid you're right, or it takes 2 days for them to get down to nothing. I kept measuring the parasitic dram, still constant at 16 mA. Somewhere I read that it's normal and keeps the computer on. Is there a way to completely disable the seatbelt unbuckled taking over the display? I see a lot of hacks for the chime, which this truck has never done, but it won't go off the display.

 

Erm, buckle the seatbelt??

 

I finally got a decent load tester and they test out perfect at resting, starting, and running at 2500 RPM. No issues and the numbers look right. My conclusion is that the 16 mA drain to keep the computer alive (or some such nonsense) caused them to deep discharge. so jump starting and driving 20 miles or so completely drained them again. and charging at the normal setting just didn't work, or would have taken days. I got them to charge doing something stupid, which was overcharging with an engine start setting on my charger until it read 95% at 12.5 amps, (I'm not at home so I can't remember the amps, maybe 100?), then at 40 amp engine boost setting overnight. In the morning the charging light was green, and I've never seen that before. I've been testing with the load tester every day, still reads nothing isn't in the normal range. I plan on doing a little freeway driving when there isn't much traffic on Sat with my wife following me and the charger and 100 ft of cord in the back Wish me luck! already have a trickle charger for my tralier so I'm going to move it to the truck and use it when I don't plan on driving over a couple weeks. Now to get the damn seatbelt unbuckled message off the display, it covers up everything else.

 

Um, obviously? It comes on with it buckled as soon as I back it up and doesn't go away in around 5 miles of driving. I've unbuckled and buckled several times while driving, nothing.

 

Charging system: What type of batteries do you have in there? Entirely possible you were simply reading a 'surface charge' previously, but, that battery just didn't have the gumption to do anything else..... If I have batteries that are stone dead, I will leave them on a 10 amp charger overnight, and that *usually* will get them fully charged.

I would suspect that switch in the buckle that completes the circuit to let the computer know you have your belt on, is not working properly. Is there an electrical connector at the base of the buckle side of the belt??

 

They're your standard lead acid from Les Schwab. The new tester says to dump the surface charge by turning the headlights for 10 seconds. Never heard of it before that. I had left them on overnight, and it took all of that to fully charge. The charger, which is the Schumacher that you roll around, has always been on 95% forever, then leaving it on overnight magically got it to 100. I had always thought that 95% was enough, apparently that's not the case with this charger. Anyway after that the new tester said charge good, CCA good, run amps good. I started it the next day and checked it, all good. Took it for a run yesterday, 15 miles round trip, no problem. I put it on a charge/maintain little unit and my plan is to extent the leads so I have the charger in the garage and a pair of clamps on the battery. It will get a test on Sunday, 4 hours round trip. Taking the jumper cables, charger, 100 ft. of cord just in case!

Re the belt unbuckled on the display, yesterday it came on, went off after 5 minutes or so, came back on. Both times it came on I was barely just moving. I figured out that if it gets below the magic MPH that it comes on at, it will come back. So it came up again when I stopped, off when I hit the "forward" button on the steering wheel after I started moving again. What I thought of trying at that point was to not hit the button on the wheel and see if it went away, I suspect that it will but didn't think to try it. I'll have to check the belt again later and report back.

At some point I mentioned the door locks not working right. The fob does nothing, but I could use the key manually and unlock the drivers door. Then, getting over a certain speed locks them like normal. To unlock them I have to use the passenger side button, which unlocks them all. So I'm thinking that some kind of sequence is happening? I can put the fob right next to the drivers side lock and there's a click inside the door that I can barely hear when I press the door button. This has been happening for a while, I just decided to be annoyed by it. Getting a new fob on Tues (my wife lost hers a couple years ago) but I'm not holding my breath. Anyway I don't think it's the fob's fault.

 

For the locks, I wonder if there is a logic module in there that has failed? Or the master switch has an issue there??