Originally Posted by
lostforawhile
all the battery does is start the car and provide power if the alternator quits,the entire car runs off of the alternator, it's the most common misconception in automotive wiring, everyone thinks a bigger battery will fix all kinds of stuff, when the power to run everything comes from the alternator. You don't have a short,trust me, I've been working on car electrical stuff since I was a little kid, you have an issue with a ground, a bad connection, or the alternator isn't producing the rated output it's supposed to. there should be a strap from the transmission to the body, as well as some other grounds, undo those and clean the mounting surfaces and reinstall them. the ground strap from the transmission to the body isn't very good, I would buy a premade battery cable with an eyelet on each end, and replace that. check your battery terminals, if they are bad, the alternator will use a lot of it's output trying to charge a badly drained battery, this will also toast your alternator, it's not made to do that, it's supposed to replace the charge from starting the car, and that's it. The lower the battery voltage, the more current is going into it trying to charge it, a battery close to 12 volts,isn't using much charge current,vs a battery much lower. Take the car to an auto parts store, etc, who can measure charging current, have them check the actual output of the alternator while it's heavily loaded I'll bet the current is way down.
Bookmarks