Well, not really. More like Electrical Woes, but it doesn't have quite
the ring to it.
Yesterday, my '95 5.2 CC wouldn't start. Put the key in, everything seems
fine and bright, but the starter cranked for maybe 0.25 second. Then, for all
the world it acted like a dead battery (dome light dim, buzzer weak, starter
relay chattering).
A friend gave me a jump start and the truck seemed OK. Ran fine, voltmeter
in normal range, radio and lights nice and bright. I did notice that the
voltmeter would increase in response to RPM; again just like a dead battery.
On the way home the Check Engine light came on, indicating trouble code storage.
Got home, and the battery certainly seemed dead. Pulled the codes, and got:
12 (battery disconnected)
41 (generator field sensing circuit, uh oh)
55 (end of test)
Disconnected the battery for real, and on subsequent PCM tests the 41 code
went away. That really seems odd; the codes are supposed to be stored for
51 starts or something like that. I suppose a dead battery could cause the
41, but I'm still a little paranoid since the FSM indicates that the voltage
regulator/generator field sensing circuitry is all inside the PCM, hence big
buckage for replacement.
Overnight, I dumped roughly 70 amp-hours into the battery, but to no avail
(still dead, registering about 11 volts). This is the H/D service battery
(750 CCA), so it's possible that I just need to charge it up longer. But
it still looks like the battery isn't taking the charge.
This is pissing me off. The truck is less than 3 years old, and the whole
reason I bought the H/D service package was to avoid stupid crap like this.
I have never seen a battery shit the bed all of a sudden like that. Most
battery failures I've seen came on with some warning (slow starts, etc.).
I plan on attempting to charge the battery again, since the truck will run
if it starts. But has anyone else seen anything like this? Really seems odd
to me. I do plan to take it to my dealer and have them check the charging
circuit out; that 41 code makes me wonder. And a 2.5 year old H/D battery
should never croak like that. <grumble>
Ron
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:08:22 EDT