hello,
I have a dual optima battery setup. A yellow top for the winch and a redtop for the car itself. Lately, since a few months or so, it seems that the battery(ies) seem to discharge pretty quick when the Jeep is just sitting in my garage.
I am wondering what the obvious reasons can be. Bad starter solenoid ? (of course a short in the wiring). anything else that is simple to check ?
thanks,
Ron
Sounds like you have a parasitic discharge someplace. Get a cheap voltmeter with a amp setting or just a small 12 volt light bulb. Unhook a battery terminal, hook the ammeter or light bulb from the cable to the battery post. If you get more than a few milliamps of current (for the clock and the computer)or the light glows dimly, you have a problem. Start pulling fuses until the current stops or the light quits glowing.
There are a bunch of common gremlins including a blown diode in the alternator, ad bad light switch, or a dome light switch that is stuck.
If your vehicle has any aftermarket th> hello,
Are your batteries just hooked up together? If so, when one goes bad, it kills the other and one will go bad pretty fast if both are on the same charging rate. One gets overcharges which fries Optimas really fast, then the fried one drains the maybe still good one.
If they are isolated from each other, then I would suspect a bad connection or a slipping fan belt isn't allowing them to get charged up fully which makes them die sooner than they should when sitting.
One bad spot for connections is the fender solenoid as you thought.
I test for a polished up fan belt by taking a cold off engine and seeing if I can hand slip the alternator pulley. If I can and the belt is tight, it will still slip under load because the alternator takes a few HP to spin up under load.
You can use a multimeter on resistance to check out connections. Any resistance means a bad connection.
Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail > hello,Hi Roy,
sorry for the late reply, I was away for a while.
sounds like a good idea, I'll try that. (It is a 79, CJ5 as far as I know it doesn't have computer nor clock. I don't have a dome, so no dome light either. I have a bunch of aftermarket stuff though.
thanks for the tip, I'll do that and start disconnecting stuff.
RoyJ wrote:
Hi Mike,
sorry for the late reply, I have been away for a while.
Yes the batteries are isolated, I have the "sure industries" setup. The batteries seem to charge ok when I drive the Jeep. When it is sitting still (and in the last two years it did that a lot) it seems to be draining power pretty quick. I don't think the batteries are over charged (I have a charger that has a gell cell setting)
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