Red's Battery

[Russell]

Sounds like replacing the radio has fixed other cars. Might be worth a try. Or you could get a battery cut off switch. Just cut it off when your not driving it.

[Deaf Bob]

Y'know... Vic and Terri probably are jonsing for a Weeville visit

Talk to a stereo store that installs em.. They might know about that problem.
Could confirm for you if your music box is the problem..

[pdub]

VICTORY, we think. Both door locks are disarmed, and the window program still works correctly. We took the console apart and unplugged the stereo.

And I say "WE." Unit's a mighty good car fixer, and she loved doing it. That was fun. Team are us, the Wees going after a problem.

If the battery runs down again, it'll be a bigger mystery. We've done what we learned how to do. Sans testing the fuse box, and Unit got under there one more time and swore she could get that thing open. Not this time Honey, squiggle yourself back outta there....

[DanStokes]

Best of luck! At the very least you've found something it ain't - and maybe what it was.

Dan

[pdub]

Sounds like replacing the radio has fixed other cars. Might be worth a try. Or you could get a battery cut off switch. Just cut it off when your not driving it.

If/when it dies again, that's exactly what we'll do instead of anything else. Thanks, Russell!

I completely believe the door locks were at least a contributing factor if NOT the root of the problem. And the stereo, everybody here and other places we looked pointed to that. I never turned it on, but we jumped through hoops today to unplug it. It's out of the picture, but we left it in there to fill up the hole it would have left.

Yeah, battery cutoff is next, that's IT for troubleshooting. Thanks everybody! Did I ever say I love BangShift? Well, I do.

[Russell]

I have been know to just un hook the negative battery cable if I know it's going to be months before I drive a car again. During the winter I would take them and put them my dad's basement to keep them warm.

[Deaf Bob]

You can always park on a hill while away from home and roll down, popping the clutch to start..
Might need a steep long one to get the motor chugging in hi gear before it lights off.. Dunno..
Might not be possible with newer cahs.. No idee.

[Russell]

If the starter will turn a little then I can roll off my 89. If it's dead then no go. Got to have enough juice to turn computer on and give it a little fuel pressure. No clue on the new stuff.

[cstmwgn]

Yeah, battery cutoff is next, that's IT for troubleshooting.

I you want to power the computer at all times as I believe leaving it powerless for long periods of time will cause it to want to re-learn its tune when the power is turned back on.

[yellomalibu]

Okay, I'm hearing that. And I saw that (Russell's post). And Unit even said that, hook it up to a charger.

I'm stubborn as hell, is the problem. We don't have an electric car. Plug it in overnight? That's admitting that whatever drain problem we have is getting worse, and it IS getting worse.

What do we do when we drive Red to a motel to run at a race track the next day, and he's dead in the morning in the parking lot? Hours from home. The tender is a patch for the real problem. If possible, I'd rather remedy the malady instead of painting over it with procedure.

As you can see Mailbu, I'm not happy, and it's sure not you at all, forgive me. BangShift ARE US. I just get pissed off at material things, not people most of the time. Ask Unit, she's seen it all. We've got a perfectly good hopped up car that we both love. Almost a perfectly good car. It should be the Dan Stokes thing.....ZEN. Calm......You don't even have to drive it........take all the time you need to fix it......I've got to learn that. It's been a very long time here on earth and I haven't learned that yet.

You have a point.

A car should be able to sit for weeks (or months) at a time without killing the battery - so indeed there is something draining it more than it should, and it should be found and fixed (or unplugged :D )

[pdub]

I hope we've got it fixed. Why didn't I just disarm those door locks after we got the car? At best it's been annoying from the get-go. Key Management was critical.

Unit went and got us a portable jump-starter yesterday. And I can take the tuner with us. I had the battery out of the car for 3 days making the fixes, and Red happily started when I put the battery back in. So the computer remembered the tune for at least that long. Don't know how long it may take for the computer to forget the tune....is that, like, burned onto a chip, like a memory stick? With the CAI on there, if he forgot the tune, he would crank but he wouldn't run. Found that out after installing the CAI without ordering a new tune. The aftermarket exhaust, not so much, he would run but just not as WELL as with another tune upgrade.

And Red's new enough (06) that when the battery gets below the threshold where the whole cranking system won't work together, it just makes a loud clicking sound that sounds like it's coming out of the computer, not the starter solenoid. And yeah, Red will roll-start like any other manual transmission car, but I've never had to do it. Yet.

[Deaf Bob]

Might need to be in a higher gear to turn the motor over long enough for the alt to turn on the fuel pump and computer..
Love older rigs in the woods. When you kill it going uphill, you can hit reverse and hope it starts going in reverse, you want the motor running going downhill in 4 wheelers!

[cstmwgn]

Disconnecting Your Car Battery Can Cause Memory Loss

What kind of problems am I talking about? Loss of memory is one. When you disconnect the battery on any vehicle that has computerized engine controls (which is virtually every car and truck that has been built since 1981), the loss of voltage to the Powertrain Control Module (PCM) causes it to forget is adaptive memory settings in its Keep Alive Memory (KAM) chip. Adaptive memory contains the adjustments the PCM has learned over time for the fuel mixture, transmission shift points and other control functions. The Keep Alive memory also includes all the results for the diagnostic self-tests the PCM runs on itself, its sensors and emission control components, plus any fault codes that may have been set (including history codes and freeze frame data that may be needed for diagnosis).