my 99 24 valve cummins is having issues starting. the issue im having is that after it sits for more then a couple hours, i have no battery power, both batteries completely dead, not even enough juice to run the dome lights, replaced with batteries just a couple days ago, didnt have a problem with the old ones just they were due or so i thought, now ive had to jump it twice in 8 hrs, alternator was new back in August of 07. Check the starter, its cold so i dont think its drawing anything, i just tried leaving my grandparents when it wouldnt start, jumped it with a tractor, took forever, going down the road the voltage will spike from 11.2-16 plus and bounce back and forth, got home, shut it off after it ran for a few minutes, tried starting it immediately back up, no battery power. any ideas????


ps, i even tried unhooking the edge box and still have the problem.

 

something is back feeding and drainin your batteries, im thinking the alternator might be bad even though it aint that old...pull it off there and get it checked...im trying to think of what would drain your batts that fast, what ever it is, is pullin some massive juice

 

thats what im thinking, i mean its draining too 1075 amp batteries(850 CCA) in just a matter of minutes

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let me re-phrase, the alternator was professionally rebuilt back in august with supposedly all new parts

 

the only thing that i could think that would drain them that fast is your grid heater...i wonder if the relay is stuck closed and not shuttin it off, IDK

 

i could drain my batteries that fast come to find out it was the fuse in the fuse block for the alternator

 

sounds like you have a bad ground check your connections and ground cable

 

i checked the fuses, none were tripped or blown i may try disconnecting the ground to the grid heaters and see what happens. sad part is now that im at home, i dont have a charger and my fiancess little dakota aint gonna jump my truck, done tried that before

 

 

i checked the ones on the batteries themselves, is there one on the alternator??

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besides the grid heaters, what else would flag both batteries like that

 

put a meter on your batteries if you haven't already and see if they are really dead or if the juice just isn't making it to the rest of your rig. it sounds to me if you replaced your batteries that recently and you didn't have a problem before you just have a bad connection