DEAD DEAD DEAD

Basically it sounds like you have a circuit shorting out somewhere. It may not be cheap to fix depending since it may be a wire issue. I had a similar issue about 6 months ago in my Grand Marquis, it ended up being a wire in the main loom behind the bumper that had frayed and was draining the battery. It cost 500$ CDN basically all in labour since they had to remove the whole bumper to fix.

Easy check: Examine all your fuses in the block underneath the dash and if nothing, open the hood and look for any wires that possibly looked burned or frayed. If nothing else and your handy with a muitlimeter and you have a Haynes/Chilton manual, trace the Ignition circuit and see if you can find the drain, short of that (sorry the pun) you may need to send to Ford to have it scoped .

Good Luck

Brad and Mia opined in news:A4J7d.171262$%S.132857@pd7tw2no:

gonna need more info,

but have you noticed anything else wrong?

Hey Backyard...

No...

Well...I replaced the battery last week as when it died, (it's an old battery - about 5 years and still from the previous owner of the truck) and with winter coming, I thought what the hell so I drove down to Costco, found one, plopped it in and varoom, off I went.... I drove it last Tuesday and today, nothing: not the light under the hood, not the radio, not the clock, nothing. I found it odd that it wouldn't boost either. The thing has 1100 CCA and is three days old, and it won't even boost?

Everything else worked fine before it crapped out. Which leads me to believe that the alternator is fried and draining it. I would go to a wrecker and replace it, but if that's not the problem, what a waste of an afternoon. I'm sure Ford can diganose it, but that will cost $100.

As you can see, I'm not liking this in the least.

Any advice is appreciated!

BTW, it's a 1980 Bronco with a 351M (dual batteries with the trailer package). And I don't have a circut light/tester... Oh, and will the battery be okay?

Thanks!

Brad

You can MAKE a light/tester from a light socket with pigtail and a bulb... but they arent that expensive.

I bet your system has an external regulator but I think you COULD have a bad diode in the alternator. If that's the case, it will show with a low current bulb and disconnecting the regulator will cause the bulb to go off.

Fortunatley you should be able to find a short relatively easily because you dont have fuel injection or "computer".. the only drain on batt with key off, doors closed would be clock/radio... and that's easy to isolate.

If I had the problem, and test bulb didnt lite after battery is recharged, though, I would simply replace alternator and regulator. Another thing to look for is bad connections at your distribution - starter solenoid and fuselinks.

Rebuilt alts work okay if from a reputable store. Esp NAPA. Or go to a yard... though you have some degree of uncertainty there.

Brad and Mia opined in news:HkO7d.593852$gE.184783@pd7tw3no:

If the radio wont even work with the jumper cables on it I would look for a bad connection-battery cables first. Dont half-ass it, clean them good. Leave the jumper car on it for a while if you dont have a charger and see what happens. Have a voltmeter? Atrer you get it charged enough to start check the voltage at the battery when its running, it should be at lease 13.

Scott, Backyard... thanks guys. I'm going to do as you suggest here. Hopefully I will cure it and that will be that. If not, it's a trip to Ford for the Big Q... ;)

Brad

I had that problem and it turned out (after many fixes that didn't work) to be that the ignition was intermittently leaving the car in accessory mode rather than off (hard to explain).