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Re: Newcomer Starting
Posted by Loren Amelang (more from Loren Amelang) on Sun, 12 May 2002 10:54:22
In Reply to: , Kok Chen, Sat, 17 Dec 1988 12:00:00 

Just a few notes:

A $20 Chinese yellow plastic DMM that lives in your car is much more useful
than a nice Fluke that lives in your house and isn't available when you are
stuck by the side of the road. And it is plenty accurate for solving car
problems. 

Current clamps are nice for solving starter problems where it is drawing
too much current. They are not needed for tracking down the kind of low
milliamp leaks you probably have - in fact they are a pain to use because
the zero adjustment drifts and creates a bigger error than the leaks you
are trying to find. Just disconnect the negative battery cable and clip
your $20 DMM into the circuit. (But remember not to turn on anything big
while it is there!) 

I found the various 'phantom loads' of radios, clocks, alarms, and the like
added up to enough drain to keep a weak battery from starting the car after
about two weeks of no driving. I also found several poor connections
between the alternator and the battery. When it limited the charging
voltage to about 13.8 measuring at the alternator, the battery was seeing
far less, and never getting fully charged. 

The best way to locate this is while it is charging, measure the tiny
voltage drop across each wire and connection. Putting the meter between,
say, +12 at the alternator output and +12 at the battery positive, lets you
use a very sensitive scale and accurately measure tiny losses. If you tried
to measure from +12 to ground at each end and subtract to get the
difference, you'd need a very expensive meter to get the same resolution,
the state of the battery and the alternator would have changed and spoiled
your results, and you wouldn't know if the difference was in the +12 or the
ground side. 

My coolant has always leaked mainly from the cap on the reserve tank. Also
check all hose connections. 'Stop Leak' products make me cringe - please
don't resort to that...  

Loren

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