Archived wont stay charged up??

[GWall]

ok so heres the deal, i replaced my frame mounted pusher pump with a new Holley blue pump, before the new pusher pump everything was perfect, but now i put a new pump on there and its like my alternator wont keep things charged up, i can drive my truck for like and hour , and then things start gettin really dim and eventually nothing works and the truck starts runnin very rough and all the gauges start moving eraticly. I shouldnt need a higher output alternator because every was fine before and now its like nothin is keeping charged, i also got the 1682 code. everything is wired up exact same

 

[wcjp]

Sounds like something is shorted to ground. Start looking for frayed wires. Couldv'e been bad before recent work. Jiggling the wires around during installation exposed the problem. Look to see how much amperage is being drawn with everything off.



Disconnect one of the batteries. This makes the truck a single battery vehicle. Configure multimeter to measure amperage. This usually means moving the red lead on the meter. Now disconnect the ground from the second battery. Attach one end of the multimeter to the ground, the other to the battery. If everything is off and doors are closed look for very low amperage. If under hood light is off amperage should be no more than . 5amps. The . 5amps is the computer and stereo thinking. Probably more like . 1amps. If your amperage is higher start pulling fuses until the problem goes away. This isolates the problem to the circuit. Turning on the key at this point will destroy the meter. The grid heaters will take large amounts of amperage. Most meters are only good to 10amps.



Not sure about diesels, off the top of my head the engine normally takes about 20amps. Heater is 18-25amps. Headlights are 18-20amps. Factory stereo is about 10amps. No idea what kind of draw to expect out of a lift pump. I've tested a few gasser pumps. They've normally had a surge of 8amps and settle to about 6amps.

 

[bmoeller]

Clean the battery terminals. Load test the batteries.

 

[Missouri Mule]

1682= Charging system to low. Do as wcjp and bmoeller suggested.

 

[GWall]

the batteries are pretty new , i just dont get it, all i changed was the pump and wired it exactly the same as before. it jus seems like the alternator isnt charging, but i bought a new alternator and then took it back and got another new one to make sure it wasnt that. how would i load test the batteries? thanks guys,

Greg

 

[p-Bar]

you need to fully charge the batteries before load testing. Most auto part stores can do this now. Did you put a volt on the system while running to see if you are charging? Follow WCJP's procedure