Dodge Cummins battery drain revisited

fixerupper · Oct 31, 2013

I finally had the chance to check things out thoroughly. Charged both batteries individually and put both under the stress test. One checked out OK the other only went up to 10 volts after charging and went down from there. Amperage draw is .034 volts. On the milliamp side it did 174 ma. Thanks for all of the advice. I'm not a car man! LOL Jim

porkbelly · Oct 31, 2013

(quoted from post at 17:26:08 10/31/13) I finally had the chance to check things out thoroughly. Charged both batteries individually and put both under the stress test. One checked out OK the other only went up to 10 volts after charging and went down from there. Amperage draw is .034 volts. On the milliamp side it did 174 ma. Thanks for all of the advice. I'm not a car man! LOL Jim

I have a the same motor and had a problem similar to yours. My battery drain was coming from the light in the glove box. It was broken off its place and stayed on all the time. Hope this helps.

fixerupper · Oct 31, 2013

Porkbelly thanks for the tip. I'm going to check that out in the morning. Had that happen in another vehicle years ago. Jim

Paul from MI · Oct 31, 2013

A friend had a similar problem with a 1968 Chevy. Turned out to be a light in the trunk that didn't turn off when the trunk was shut. Probably something like that.

RayP(MI) · Oct 31, 2013

Years ago I was doing service work on electronics
for the county cop cars, ambulances, rescue
vehicles... Had a rescue truck that kept running
battery down. Finally traced it down to a hand held
spotlight someone had stuffed in the glove box
after the bracket on the dash broke. Had burned
some gloves in the box - why the entire vehicle
didn"t catch fire I don"t know. Boss was not happy.

fixerupper · Oct 31, 2013

Ray, a few days ago I was investigating why a radio wouldn't work in a 378 Peterbilt. I was checking the fuses (spade type) and found a circuit breaker plugged into the roof acc terminal. I grabbed it to pull it out and burned my fingers cause it was so hot. Had sore fingers for three days and they're still a little touchy.

It was a 30 amp breaker plugged in where a 20 amp fuse should go. After much investigating I found the spot light above the driver's door was shorting. I cut the wire to the spot light, put in a 20 A fuse and suddenly I had a working radio and dome lights again. It's good the truck didn't catch fire in the middle of the night sitting by the barn. Jim

Dodge Cummins battery drain revisited

fixerupper

Well-known Member

porkbelly

New User

fixerupper

Well-known Member

Paul from MI

Well-known Member

RayP(MI)

Well-known Member

fixerupper

Well-known Member

Similar threads