Whats wrong with me!? (Contains Whinge)

[valman]

dont know if anyone has mentioned this but it could be down to the cold, how cold has it been? alot of my friend's cars havent been starting during cold periods with the snow and what we're having in the last couple of days too,

[volvosneverdie]

dont know if anyone has mentioned this but it could be down to the cold, how cold has it been? alot of my friend's cars havent been starting during cold periods with the snow and what we're having in the last couple of days too,

Yeah man. I think the cold did kill the 1st battery (which was origonal, i.e. old) but I dont tink its the cold thats draining the battery. We had a warm spell and it still happened.

[Speedy88]

Ive removed the glovebox light and the boot light in case they were drawing a current.

Good, I use method too, I have many boxes of electronic parts inside that I have taken out of my french crap, useless weight really.

Clock, radio removing those one by one, surely at some point culprint is found or there is just no parts left and you find out fault being in battery, that is what would happen to me at least

Unless it's a short in the loom somewhere...

[macplaxton]

You can spend weeks trying to trace this. It really want going over with a very fine-toothed comb sort of thing.

[Speedy88]

Know anyone on RR near you that's an electrical kinda guy? If you were down here I'd suggest dropping into A52, that's always been my failsafe

[volvosneverdie]

You can spend weeks trying to trace this. It really want going over with a very fine-toothed comb sort of thing.

If its intermitant, which it is, you could use a tooth comb on it for weeks and still come up fooked.

I suppose.

[jtbo]

Ammeter between battery and battery lead, so you can see how much power is drawn and if it is considerable amount, then start taking out fuses out one by one?

[macplaxton]

You can spend weeks trying to trace this. It really want going over with a very fine-toothed comb sort of thing.

If its intermitant, which it is, you could use a tooth comb on it for weeks and still come up fooked.

I suppose.

True, this is my other practical suggestion in these cases:

[sven360]

A fitting end for a diesel Cav.

[nvdw]

Seriously.
Every car I touch turns to Turd these days.

Also called the "Reverse King Midas Touch".

You have all right to moan about it and I do sincerely hope that one day, you'll find that car that doesn't let you down. I guess it's a safe bet that particular car won't be a Peugeot, a Ford or a Vauxhall.

[volvosneverdie]

Seriously.
Every car I touch turns to Turd these days.

I guess it's a safe bet that particular car won't be a Peugeot, a Ford or a Vauxhall.

i best buy a volvo then!

[jtbo]

Well, you could try if you indeed have reversed touch in your hands and by a Austin?

[foggyjames]

Pulling fuses is a good call. Pull everything (overnight...noting first where they all go back!), and see if it goes away. Nasty problem...

cheers

James

[pettaw]

If you've been pulling the connections off the battery, either wire doesn't make any difference, and the battery refused to crank it the next morning, then the battery was flat when you disconnected it.

OK so something isn't charging the battery properly. My bet would be a weak alternator. You say you got 14.2 V out of it when running, which seems fine, but you need to do the next test, which is to load up the alternator and see if it copes then.

Start the car up and measure the voltage. Then switch on every electrical gadget on the car: lights rear window heater etc. Make sure you switch on the ones that really load up the system, ie: headlights, and heater fan, they tend to draw the most current. Measure the voltage again. It will have dropped, possibly quite considerably, to somewhere around 13V, but don't worry too much. With the meter still connected, bring the revs up on the engine until the voltage stabilizes, you may need around 2500 to 3000 rpm to achieve this. Check the voltage should be somewhere near the unloaded voltage, but may be slightly lower, maybe around 13.8V.

If all that happens as I described then the alternator is likely fine. However, I suspect that when you carry out the load test, you'll get a low charge voltage. I strongly suspect you've got bad brushes or a bad voltage regulator which is able to get an unloaded voltage OK, but when you load the system up, it can't manage.

Probably the easiest and cheapest way to fix it, is to buy a new voltage regulator. Voltage regulators aren't expensive, and should be readily available from an auto electrician or somewhere that specializes in rebuilding alternators/starters. Sometimes if you're really lucky a local motor factor will have one. Most of the time the voltage regulators aren't too difficult to remove, they're normally just inside the rear cover, but most of the time you have to take the alternator out of the car to access it.

My voltage regulator went on the 850 which caused 19V to go through the system which blew the lights and caused all sorts of error lights to come up on the dashboard, the idiot light not being one of them, naturally
And of course I was stuck 20 miles from home, so I had to drive home with no lights and a gradually escalating burning smell of a battery slowly being toasted. Said battery eventually blew its top and sprayed acid all over the bonnet of the car, but by then I was just about home so I managed to pull up and douse the whole thing in lots of water which stopped it. Luckily I managed to get the voltage regulator out of the car without removing the alternator and a new one only cost me about 20 quid + a new battery.

Hope that helps.

[volvosneverdie]

.

Hope that helps.

Kind of.
I sold it this morning.

Thanks very much for the lengthy reply Pettaw. That's information that I'm sure will come in handy to many. I'll bookmark it so it's easy to find.