Battery Alternator or What

[darrin75]

Couple of comments:  First will the battery(new battery) go dead on a car then only gets drove on average once every couple of weeks, and two what cause a 69 charger to die when I pull over and cut wheels deep to turn.  Float? Idle need to be high because of load?  Could I possibly have a bad ground in the car cause the battery to go dead.  I think these car as old as they are can't have much hooked up to them.  I have a brand new optium(spelling) battery.  It seems everytime I get a new battery car does good for about a month, then I go to get in it and battery is down.  I am tired of that shat.  Any suggestions?

[c00nhunterjoe]

something is drawing the battery down, i go months at a time with no issue cranking. is the car bone stock or have you added wiring to it? are you familiar with electrical systems and multimeters? if so i can walk you through some easy diag on the system to pinpoint the issue

[darrin75]

Yeah give me the play by play..

[aifilaw]

First, the way to determine if the battery or alternator is the culprit, is to start the car, while it is running disconnect the negative post from the battery, if the vehicle dies, then the alternator is at fault.

Cutting a sharp turn with wheels causes a larger load to be placed on the engine at a low idle because of the power steering pump placing a load on the accessory belt.

On old cars, unless you have added a lot of aftermarket accessories like stereo's, amps, et cetera. Then disconnect the positive post and measure the resistance in ohms across the positive cable and the negative post, or chassis ground(same at this point). If you are reading anything below near-infinite, then there is a load on the battery equal to around 13 divided by the resistance measured. Eliminate sources of load by disconnecting various electrical devices and redoing that test.

[c00nhunterjoe]

it would be easier to hook the amp meter between the positve battery post and positve battery cable. a typcial reading on a newer car needs to be less then .4 or .5 amps but on a charger it should be 0. if you have any amp reading with the key off then you can start pulling fuses but 9 times out of 10 if there is a draw its either the starter or alternator that is the problem. easiest way to tell is pop the cable off the alternator and see if the draw goes away and if not then pull the wire off the starter and see if it goes away