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Another Parasitic Battery Drain Story


650savag

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I've been following the dying battery topic and thought I would start another thread as not to hijack that one. I have been un-hooking my ground cable on my truck ev ery time I park it for several hours because it has killed my battery more than once. Well you can probably guess what happened to my ground cable clamp after doing this for over a year. Thats right, it finally broke, leaving me having to clamp it on to the post with vice grips every time. So after reading up about testing the circuits to see where the culprit was, today I decided to get my little amp meter out and go to work. I unhooked the ground cable and checked the mili-amps from the ground post to the cable and it read OL. (overload). So I set it to DC amps and it read 28.30 amps. I thought, thata aint no little parasitic drain! So I reachd down and un-plugged the little oval shaped(2-wire) plug from my altenator and the amp meter went to zero! Wala! I found the culprit. So, I suppose,judging on what I have read on here from some of you good Datsun mechanics, I have a bad diode in my altenator, Right? The altenator charges just fine so I may just start un-plugging the alt. when I park it now instead of messing with the battery cable. It would be a lots easier. I really don't want to spend the money for a new alt. when mine is charging fine, not counting the labor involved in the change out. What do you guys think?

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A new alt will cost about $60, but some places will buy your old one off ya and take it off the price of the new one. And the labor is a matter of undoing a few bolts and unplugging some wires. in the long run it'll be wayyy less labor-intensive then unplugging it whenever you stop. I'd say get a new alt and save yourself the hassle of dealing with whatever may come with this problem.

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I will check around at the parts stores to see what the new ones are going for. If I remember correctly, this problem started when the original altenator went out on me and I bought this new/rebuilt one at Autozone and installed it. In retrospect, it probably had a bad diode in it from the start but I did not recognize it until too late. I'm worried now that if I change it out I might get another bad one off the shelf and go through all that trouble for nothing. I might be better off just staying with what I've got. I'm not sure what I will do for right now. Thanks, Louisiana Dan

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I looked again at the alternator plug and the one that I am unplugging is the "T" plug. I wrote earlier that it was an oval shaped plug. I have read that taking your pos. battery cable off with the engine running will fry the diodes in the alternator but I have never heard that unplugging the alternator will do the same thing. It makes sense though. I priced rebuilt alternator here locally and O'reillys wants $56 for a Ultima brand. They also show an AC Delco and a Bosch put no pricing. I'll have to call and check on pricing and availabilty. Does anyone know which remanufactured one would be the best? Thanks for all the good comments so far. Louisiana Dan

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Taking the battery cable off a running external regulated alt isn't good for it. Taking it off for a few seconds won't hurt to see if it keeps running. I don't think it bothers an internally regulated one at all. Just to be safe I would never try this. The battery absorbs any voltage spikes and protects the system from overloads.

 

Spinning an alt that's not plugged in? Not hooked up, can't make power. You couldn't spin it fast enough anyway. Have to say this is bunk. Myth.

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