ok here goes, my ERST is loosing charge for some reason!! when i start my car now and again it struggles to turn over..
also when i am driving it at night with the headlights on the battery light is on dim...
if i leave it a couple of days without starting it, the battery goes flat!!
ive disconnected the alarm and tried that way but its still the same!
took out all the interior bulbs,, no joy

it had 2 new batteries on it,
and a new alternator..

any ideas what u all think it is..
also my front or rear heated screens arnt working but the relay clicks when it turn either on,,

 

You have something draining the battery. Check that the radio is not drawing more current than it should be. Also go through the alarm and imobiliser wiring to check that circuit.

I used to have this problem on my S2 and auto electricians said they found nothing wrong. In the end I took it to my friends garage and we took an initial current reading (think it was about 0.8) then disconnected the power to the alarm, then the seperate immobiliser taking readings evertime we disconnected something. Then the clock. It still read about 0.3/0.4 at this point which was about right on the drop we had for what we had disconnected (0.2/0.3) but still had something draining power. I then fully disconnected the stereo and the power drain was 0.
My stereo permanent and accessory lives were both connected to the same wire so it was correctly drawing power to remember the stations, time, etc but drawing it from both wires so doubling the draw.

After correctly fitting the stereo wiring and reconnecting digi clock and alarm, immob the drain was around the 0.5/0.6 mark which was acceptable for what was perm live.

 

Shawn.....having the accessory wire connected to a permenant feed shouldn't make any odds if the stereo is switched off, bit wierd Obviously the permenant feed should see a minimal current draw so the stereo retains its memory.

Now...davsmith64 if your confident your alternator and battery are ok, as Shawn has said, you need to do a current test and see if theres any excessive drain.

Your battery light, thats usually caused by high resitance in the ignition circuits, its very common to the MK3's, where there is a high resistance a difference in potential is created between the voltage in the ignition circuit and the voltage at the alternator output, hence why the bulb glows dimly, my cabriolet actually does this, as have most of my Orions, not really something ive ever done anything about as it doesnt prove to be a problem really.

And your heated screens, for now i would remove the relays to eliminate them from the equation.

And lastly........your alarm.........you say you've disconnected it? This will sound rude but is your alarm a bit of a crap one, any half decent alarm you won't be able to disconnect/turn off

 

Well it was drawing nearly half of the full load on it's own, but when wired correctly lowered the draw and never had a problem after that.

As for the alarm: depends where they've put the power and earth. If there's a few wires going to the battery they may have added the alarm on to one of those, so disconnecting this wire will stop the alarm (as well as whatever else is on it). Or could have ran a stand-alone wire to mingle in wih the others and be disguised?? Just guessing.

 

no its a clifford cat 1, my uncle came disconnected it has he is a Auto Electrician and specilases in fitting TOAD alarms... so he disconnected it for me..

 

another thing, when driving the car my RPM needle shows way too many revs than what it actually is running at, if im driving the car and i click the window switch the rpm needle goes down to about its original place!! strange!!!
does it sound like an earth?

 

Ah right fair enough if its a Clifford, any half decent alarm should never have any power/immobilisation wires visible.

A TOAD is what you want though

As for your rev counter - MK4 rev counters are just shit and theres not another word i would use to describe them

 

yeah i am having a toad fitted... i was going to cut the RPM wire and run it to pin11 on the EDIS module as this is a clean RPM output, but if i did that i will need to wire it to my fuel/injector relay also wouldnt i??

 

Ah so you've converted to EFI then! Where is the rev counter getting its signal from currently?

 

pretty sure its coming from its original location!! not too sure tho but its deffo not coming from the edis pack, do u rekon it could be this thats flattening the battery??
i converted it to EFI a fair while back now but lost my notes what i used for the wiring

 

The rev counter would of taken its signal from the coil originally, and this the reason why when people convert, the rev counter usually reads half of what it should. because EFI uses 2 coils so each one only faires at half the rate.

Your rev counter is almost definately knackered!

 

so its deffo not a earthing problem then? cos if i try to put my window up it goes normal,, is it getting a too powerfull reading or owt??

 

Well the rev counter reads the low tension ignition signals. You might have a dodgy earth, or the conversion may have been wired in such a way that causes feedback problems

 

ok ill trace the wire back to see where its going to!!!!!
then i'll re wire it to pin 11 on the EDIS and see what happens then..

 

might sound daft, but check ya boot light is turning off wen the boot is shut. trust me, i had that problem once and took me ages to find out that the boot light was causing it

 

He's already removed all interior bulbs Mike. Without the bulb there will be no current draw.
Also had similar on the S2..lol...wondered why there was no bulb in it

 

yeah i removed all interior bulbs..
alarms disconnected,
heated window relays removed,
new alternator
new battery!!
had to jump lead it this morning to go to work,
and from work..

its doing my fooking head in!

 

well, the answer is easy. change the: http://www.biltema.no/carparts/carpa...elItemId=60125

no idee what its in english, bur in norwagian its vitferem

the one who is going from a wheel on the engine and to the alternator

 

If it was the belt you would know about it.

davsmith64, have you done current drain tests yet like i said

 

well, if the belt is not properly tited up, now, the battery belt will have alot of charghing light at 1000-2000 rpm. and if the bulb has gone.. u could not see it

 

If the belts isnt properly tightened it will squeal

And if the light doesnt work the person is a muppet for not noticing there are missing a pretty light when they turn the ignition on

 

yap, usally is it.. but that or the amplifire.. will go for on of those

 

eh?? didnt get that

 

nei du gjorde vel ikke det! The belt mister

 

Ummmmmmmmm

 

IT DEFFO NOT THE BELT!

ok yesterday i had to jump lead it again!!! but theres one more detail i had to add onto the subject!!

my car wont crank from the key all of the time?? i have to fire it from a start button thats been wired in... so if im thinking right the charging all runs through the ignition system dont it???
i think my ignition is fucked..
anyway last night i bought yet another BRAND NEW alternator.. it should be here saturday,,
anyways, today i am going to call fords up for a new ignition box ( black box behind the barrel) start hacking away and rewire in a new one,
once rewired hopefully it will fire with the key everytime,

then saturday i will put on the alternator,, and see if the light goes out on the dash even with my lights on!!!

what u rekon Safechav?? u fell asleep reading it yet...lol

 

Mate seriously you need to get back to the basics instead of buying random parts and hoping for the best

Charging rate test!!

Current drain test!!

Get them done NOW

 

OK i have a autoguage RPM guage, ive wired that up to the green wire that goes to the clocks, and it works perfect, showing the correct RPM,, but i wired it using the earth from the autoguage going to the chassis, could it be a dodgy eart going to the clocks?

i think u are right SafeChav, my clocks are almost definately knackered!

 

Agreed..get it done mate. Then you will have two starting points to work from before spending cash on things you don't need. If you can't do it, use that money to get an auto-electrician to check those out for you and give you the results.

 

ok, how can it not charge? all it is is a thick wire coming from the live on the battery to the starter motor, and from the starter motor to the alternator... it earths throught the engine and theres a thin wire going to the warning light,, if its not guna charge the light will come on brighter! but it aint, its as though its not charging fast enuf!!!
but yeah theres deffo summat draining it! when the battery is fully charged it will take about 3 days of been stood to go flat.. but when driving it seems as though its only trickle charging it and not charging it fast enuf..

so this seems like symptoms of a fucked alternator,, am i right??

 

hmmm.. .one question... your alarm, do it have a ingition security dings.. that if u take out the wiers it wont start? mine had that

 

well if i unplug the alarm box it disables the alarm, but also has a seperate immobiliser, if i unplug the imobiliser box it wont start, completely cut the ignition and shit..

 

Well its very common for the main charging lead to break down internally for one

 

ok, had the multimeter out and tested it while running, shows 13.91v

when i went to the car it was showing 11.3v and wouldnt turn over, had to get the jump leads on it again!!

but as i say when started it was showing 13.91v, so looks to be charging to me,,

here we go with the drain test, i couldnt do it as my multimeter only has a max of 10 amps

when i turn the lights on when the car is running it drops a little to 12.75..

so cant do the drain test with this multimeter..

 

You divvy

A current drain test, is to test whats being pulled with everything turned off

I didnt ask you to connect your meter in series with one of the main battery cables and crank it over lol