So folks, I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction. My truck is either having alternator, TIPM, ECM, or some other sort of weird problem.

It all started about a month and a half ago. I went up to my folks camp on a Friday night, and parked the truck when I got there. I went to leave Sunday afternoon and the batteries were dead. Over the weekend the low was probably between -15 and -20. I went on the assumption that the batteries probably froze, so I picked up new Autozone Duralast golds that night when I got home.

Fast forward to last weekend, my truck sat all weekend again. I parked it Friday night, and fired it up Monday morning. It cranked over a bit slower than usual, but it was also about 10* out, so this isn't a real good example. Just wanted to point it out for arguments sake. If the truck has been sitting over night I have NO issues cranking the next morning and it cranks over super fast.

So finally, we're at this past weekend. I parked my truck again Friday night, and did not touch it til this morning. I walk out and hit the unlock button, and I notice my parking lights did not light up. Thinking this is weird, I walk closer and try it again. No dice. Had to unlock the door by hand only to find out the batteries were dead. After an hour of screwing around running between my house and my parents house at 5AM, I finally got the truck jumped off my girlfriends Civic. (As a cliffnote, don't try this. It took 10+ minutes sitting in the Civic with the RPM's at 2k before I got enough juice to the truck batteries to actually get it to fire). Once I got it jumped, I had to leave ASAP. I've been working 2 hours away every day of the week for the past 6 months, and already running late I decided to chance it. For the first 10 miles of the trip the batteries were charging good, 14+ volts on the dash meter. At some point I looked down and noticed that the needle was just a hair below 14 volts. Thinking this was odd, I turned off my seat heater and continued on. About 5 minutes later, my check gauges light went on and my dash meter was somewheres around 12 volts. Thinking "oh crap", I turned around and headed home. The meter continued to drop all the way home, until I got into my neighborhood and the truck started to stumble. By the time I hit my driveway, the batteries were flat out dead and the truck stalled halfway into the driveway.

Anyways, I pulled the alternator out and dropped it off to get looked at. I'm hoping they find a bad diode, but I'm not expecting much. My sort of luck usually results in something along the lines of a fried ECM or a bad TIPM. It's never as simple as new batteries or a new alternator. So here I am, asking for help. Does anyone have any suggestions for me to try in the meantime without my alternator? Or things I can check once I get it back?

TIA,

Shawn

 

Sounds like something is sticking "on" for a lack of better terms.

Could be you grid heaters, being that you are parked in those cold temps.?

Did you unplug that Edge yet?

Maybe that has something to do with it?

Do you have a good ammeter?

 

I've probably got a dozen different flukes. Once I get some work done here tonight, I'm gonna go start pulling fuses and see what's being drawn. Also gonna check for draw right off the battery. It's entirely possible it's the grids? Never thought of that to be honest. I did not unplug the edge, but I do plan on taking it out this weekend, so I guess I might need to bump that up to tomorrow night instead!

Thankfully I have my other truck in the meantime, so I don't need to split hairs over figuring it out tonight.

Thanks for the input so far!

 

Testing is best done with the hole truck , then you need special equipment - a load tester , check , batteries , alt. and starter .
Then on to the drain , you can use an inductive amp meter , see how much current is being pulled , with that info you can maybe check fewer items [ only the ones that pull the amount of current that matches the measured draw .
With an inductive amp gauge you can check the individual wires to each suspected device .
These are an example of what are avalable , cheap enough , to do all the above tests , you need both gauges , one for the heaver draws and the other for the lighter draws .

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item....re&dir=catalog

 

Well, unfortunately the batteries drain pretty quick so I'd hate to drive it somewhere and have them load test the alt. only to have them find nothing, drain my batteries, and not be able to make it home.

So you're saying I can't use a Fluke DVM between the battery post and cable to measure the draw? From there I was planning on pulling fuses and sticking the probes between each side of the fuses hole.

Shawn

 

Your fluke is limited to only a few amps , you did not say what fluke you have , I'd guess fluke makes a meter that will handle amps over 1,000 amps , but most will not .
If the batteries drain fast , that means a high amp draw , beyond most meters [ 10 amps as I remember ] .
Load test everything , not just the alt. , I been at a parts house when a semi came in picking up every battery in the place , because most all of the last shipment were defective , the point being your looking to solve a problem that you do not know the cause , so do not assume anything is OK without testing .

 

I just looked at the manual. It's a Fluke 87 (that's nearest me). I've got some larger ones I use for work that most likely handle more current. The 87 will handle 10A, or 20A for 30 seconds apparently. That should be sufficient to check draw on the batteries, with the key in the OFF position. Correct? I may pick up a set of those gauges, but I've gotta give some friends a call first because a lot of my friends are car guys and I'm thinking someone might have a set.

Thanks for taking the time to respond John! I appreciate the help. I'll post back my results after I do some poking around and a little more investigating. I want to remove the edge first, and I'll probably check out the stereo connections on the truck as well. Not really a necessity, but it's something I've been wanting to do anyways since god knows what the previous owner may have done.

Shawn

 

Well, got the alternator back. Shop said everything checked out. I got almost everything buttoned up last night but it got too dark and I need to throw the serpentine belt on one last pulley and it's all done.

Once up and running, I've got some circuits to start checking....thinking grid heaters is probably most likely if the alternator was indeed charging since no other circuit can draw more current than the alternator can make. Right? Is there a way to see what the PCM is commanding the alternator to do, to eliminate that from the equation?

 

Sorry but you keep making assumptions , and assumptions get us in trouble .
This one is that " since no other circuit can draw more current that the alternator can make . Right ? "
Just to start with , the batteries are a circuit , you have 2 of them [ unknown what batteries you have ] but say you have 800 cca x 2 = 1,600 amps , that's the source of what you can draw from , now you are limited , 1st by the battery cables , then what ever the load , a direct short or a component [ lets say the starter { what condition ? } ] , it can pull all of the batteries capacity , if the condition of starter is very bad .
Then once you get away from the starter [ largest draw , with the largest cables ] , you are limited by wires [ mostly 10 ga. to 14 ga. ] .

 

Well, heres what I've gotten too so far. Time has been tight, been working pretty long days so working on the truck is difficult. The batteries are Autozone Duralast Gold batteries, a month old. They have 850CCA each. I had them both tested before I'd purchase them to ensure they were both good.

First thing first, I hooked ONE battery up last night that was fully charged. Left everything over night parked, nothing on, etc... Tonight when I got home I popped the hood and instantly noticed the underhood light was almost non existent. So something is definitely draining the batteries. I finished hooking everything up, threw the charger on the truck, and came back two hours later. Fired the truck up, and had 5 codes. They were P2509, P2502, P2146, P2149, and P1755. 2 were injector codes?! One was battery, one was transmission something or other, and I can't remember the last one. I gotta look those up still.

Anyways, hopped in and decided to try my luck with driving it. Took it on a 20 minute trip and ended up at Autozone. I let them load test the batteries and again everything tested out good. Continued to drive for another 20 minutes without issue. Everything was charging as it should, grids cycled as necessary, and I noticed no unnecessary battery draw. I'm gonna let it sit over night and see if the batteries drain at all. If they do, I'm gonna disconnect and charge during the day, and hook them back up with the grids disconnected over tomorrow night.

I might do some more testing tomorrow night when I get home from work, but it's tough in the dark. I'm also going to try and find a snap-on guy tomorrow for a set of those ammeter gauges. Is there anything I can do to test the starter if functionally it seems to work just fine when the truck is charged?

Thanks for any and all insight guys! I will update as I make progress.
Shawn

 

Did some code searching. Seems like most can be explained by the drained batteries, and the 2 injector codes are possible from the Edge J/A. That's getting moved to the front of my list for things to do, so I'll be pulling that when I get home tomorrow.

Anyone wanna buy a Juice/Attitude? Works great

 

Shawn , you may be able to find those gauges at Sears / Napa or other good parts house [ a good parts house has a few things to look for , if they deliver to repair shops ] you want the guys behind the counter to have knowledge & experience .
Not sure how you know that the batteries are fully charged ?
How batteries / charging is for a separate thread , but to make the point , I've been in the repair bis, for about 30 yrs. , after me making many assumptions , now when I do testing , I test my tester [ what ever it is , 1st , as simple as a test light , on a battery ] I have sometime gone on for 15 minutes or longer , just to find out that the bulb was burned out of the test lite .
If the batteries are fully charged , and near dead the next day [ again , assuming 8-10 hrs ] , that is a vary large draw , something should be getting warm with that much current .
I haven't noticed which truck your talking about , my guess is the 06 ?
When you do get inductive gauges , do not forget the fusible links .
The idea of pulling the fuses , one at a time , with a multimeter [ on 12v DC ] you should see a voltage change when you disconnect the circuit that is pulling as much as the one that is giving you this problem .
How come were the only ones here ?
If we were in the same area , I would help , but that would be about a 1,500 mile commute .

 

I can assure you the heater grid is not your problem. Possiblly a sticking solenoid contact. You should be able to feel hot intake if one sticks during/after shutdown. Remember the batteries must be checked separatelly in a disconnected condition. I suggest taking to a electrical shop and get it repaired. Sounds like you got to much going on to keep failing on fixing. It is acceptable to let someone else repair occasionally. You are gonna need a FSM ultimatelly to keep your sanity. JMHO of course.

 

Whew, where to start with this one... The truck in question is the 06 which is new to me. I know the batteries are charged because I charged them myself, individually, and disconnected from the truck. One thing I had not thought of at the time was to disconnect one battery at a time while they were load testing them. I DID repeatedly ask the kid if two batteries hooked up would screw with his readings, and he swore no. I said "well they're connected so it's gonna give false readings", and he responded with "yea, but I'm only connected to the one battery". Ok but they're still connected!

Next, I checked the truck tonight. Batteries still have a charge. I disconnected both positive battery cables and connected my DVM between a positive post and one cable end. Initially there was 120mA being drawn or so, and that quickly dropped to probably 20mA. This was with the light under the hood lit, so I'm guessing that initial draw was from lighting the bulb. I checked all the wires and intake elbow tonight before I did anything, and NOTHING was warm. I wish I had checked the intake elbow when the truck first did this, but even so wouldn't it be warm from the engine temps?

I'm gonna let it sit over night again and continue to drive my other truck. I'm hoping the batteries are holding a charge again tomorrow night. If they are, I'm gonna do a half dozen or so 10-15 minute trips, come home and kill the truck, and wil check for draw off the batteries like I did tonight again. I won't be able to find ammeter gauges until Saturday but I'm hoping Sears has something?

So you're saying use the DVM on the batteries and monitor voltage as I pull each fuse one at a time? I could also pull one fuse at a time, and use the DVM on amps across the fuse hole right? I know, I know I could blow a fuse in the meter but it's something to try as well right?

Thanks for all the help so far John, at least I've got SOMEONE here to help!

Shawn

 

Well, checked for something and giggles this morning, batteries were dead? I *think* it could be something as simple as a computer turning on after the truck goes into "sleep" mode at night. I put a call into my snap-on guy, waiting to here back from him.

This should work as well, right John?
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...2369000P?mv=rr

Let me know if that link doesn't work...

Shawn