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Battery not charging


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I tried to start my truck this morning and it was a little sluggish. I drove it about 30 minutes then parked it for the day. I started it this afternoon and again, it was a little sluggish. I drove 30 minutes home. I turned it off then tried immediately to start it again and it just didn't have enough power to turn the engine over. It was showing charging while driving.

 

Any ideas? Time for a new battery?

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Any ideas? Time for a new battery?

 

Not necessarily. Place a voltmeter across the battery terminal and measure the charging voltage. It should be at least 13.5 VDC when the RPM is 1500 or so. If the voltage is okay, get the battery load tested. If not, it's the charging system; alternator, regulator, or badly corroded terminals on the mains cables.

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yeahthat.gif

 

 

And pull the plastic loom off the cables, and inspect the cables for cracked/missing insulation.

 

The way you state it, when your cranking the starter, your getting a very weak, sluggish start, that leans to the positive cable to the starter being corroded.

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I cleaned terminals and made sure it had water. I tested and couldn't get anything to register across the terminals. I must be doing that wrong. While it was running (I had to jump it), I pulled the positive cable off and it kept running which told me it wasn't the alternator. I took it in and had Autozone test the battery. Bad. Dead as a murph. I replaced the battery.

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I cleaned terminals and made sure it had water. I tested and couldn't get anything to register across the terminals. I must be doing that wrong. While it was running (I had to jump it), I pulled the positive cable off and it kept running which told me it wasn't the alternator. I took it in and had Autozone test the battery. Bad. Dead as a murph. I replaced the battery.

 

Sounds good. I'd still verify the charging voltage across the battery terminals. The alternator voltage regulator on your 91 is built-in to the ECU computer. Autozone can do it for ya. :cheers:

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Just had the same thing happen on our 93 XJ. She sat over the weekend, I fire it up to take to the gas station 10 minutes down the road. Filled it up and tried to start, nothing but one click. Jumped it and drove the 2.5 hours home and parked it. Tried to start again and all I got was a little whine.

 

New battery and she is back to normal. Granted, the battery was put in by the previous owner back in 2002! Pretty good life out of the cheapest autozone battery if you ask me.

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You have already done what I would have suggested with jumping and pulling the cables to check the Alt. Sometimes a battery just dies.. it just happened to me last weekend in the wife's Libby... She went to the store, hour later I get a call that the jeep won't start. I go thru the standard stuff, no luck. It was fine then it wasn't... Found the batt dead dead dead. the jeep was jumped and ran fine. I changed the batt and everything is fine again.

 

Further examination showed something happened inside the batt, the neg post had "sunk" into the battery body!

 

BTW, MAN have batteries gone up!!

 

Glad you found it!!

 

CW

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I cleaned terminals and made sure it had water. I tested and couldn't get anything to register across the terminals. I must be doing that wrong. While it was running (I had to jump it), I pulled the positive cable off and it kept running which told me it wasn't the alternator. I took it in and had Autozone test the battery. Bad. Dead as a murph. I replaced the battery.

 

Sounds good. I'd still verify the charging voltage across the battery terminals. The alternator voltage regulator on your 91 is built-in to the ECU computer. Autozone can do it for ya. :cheers:

 

How do I do that at home? I have an analog voltmeter.

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So do I, and old Simpson 260. Neg lead to neg post, pos lead to pos post, and check the voltage with the engine off. Then start the engine and check again at about 1500 RPM. The indicated voltage should be about 1.5VDC higher than the at rest reading.

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