Emergency help needed

[EMISSARYx]

Hi all, I need your help! I am stuck in south Dakota, here is what is happening to my m1009: 12v power was switching rapidly on certain circuits while driving, I thought it was just a bug until I stopped. When I went to start back up, the starter engaged for a second and then started clicking. The glow plug circuit seems to rapidly switch on and off, and will not stay on. I tired a quick bypass of the circuit for the glow plug controller, but I am thinking it maybe something else now. When I turn the key to on, everything just clicks rapidly and the power meter basically goes and and stays in the red, like there is a direct short and something is robbing the power. Help please please

 

[chevyCUCV]

Start simple, battery connections?
Good grounds?
Check your battery voltage, check ground cables from continuity. Same for all wires from the battery or diamond block next to the gp relay.

Follow all your wires looking for any bare copper.
If it is an issue like you describe, you are the only one who can fix it. Not something that is diagnosed as xxxx

 

[EMISSARYx]

Thx for the words of encouragement, they will help when I sit here and cry

 

[richingalveston]

people with cucv's arent allowed to cry

crying will only cause additional shorts in your electric system, LOL.

check grounds and power cables and double check your batteries. if your front battery is bad causing low voltage, it will not allow the relays to stay ingaged thus causing them to bounce in and out. and yes your voltage meter will stay in the red.

a battery can go at any time especially in cold weather.

if all the power wires are good, a loose ground will do the same thing, unfortunatly they are harder to find.

good luck

 

[73m819]

do a good load test on the batteries, if you can get started with jump, check the output of the alternators

 

[richingalveston]

swap batteries

if you are limited on tools, swap the front battery with the back. if it was bad and your back battery is good, then this will allow all of the 12V stuff to work fine it just wont start because the starter is 24V.

at this time go buy a new battery and replace the bad one.

One thing we forgot to ask, is your truck stock with stock electric system or has it been converted to 12V.
if it is not stock, and not converted by the Roscommon method then people here will have difficulty helping you.

if you are 24 volt, do not try to jump the rear battery, you can send 24 volts to the car being used to jump it with and cause big problems. However, you can jump the front battery without any issues.

once you know you have good batteries and the truck is running. check your alternators outputs prior to getting on the road. a bad alt. may have caused a bad battery if that end up being the problem.

 

[EMISSARYx]

The front battery starts at 10v and then drops down to 3v when I turn the key on, the 24v drops to 17v, it looks like the battery died?

 

[Warthog]

Yes the front battery is toast.

 

[jeffhuey1n]

Sounds like a DieHard did just that. How old are the batteries? Are they military or are the civilian after market? If military, replace ASAP...too old to do anything with. If after market, depending on who made will determine what you do. If cheapos, replace. If high end, might try and recharge but if that works, you got bigger problems (alternators bad, or worse.
Good luck...gremlins in the electrical system is almost as bad as gremlins in the fuel system.

 

[wayne pick]

You may have left something on that drained the front battery, as said above, you may need to just jump the front battery. It won't start right away when jumping, let it charge for 10min or so. as you will need to cycle the glow plugs a few times if it's cold.

 

[ryan77]

Sounds like the ignition switch shorting out!!!!

 

[armytruck63]

If you do need to replace the batteries, try group 31 commercial rather than the military batteries. The group 31's fit nicely in the stock battery trays.

 

[ryan77]

I like the Farm and Fleet group size 31 batts!!

 

[Hasdrubal]

" do not try to jump the rear battery, you can send 24 volts to the car being used to jump it with and cause big problems."

Is this correct? It was my understanding that if both batteries were dead and you had 2 other 12V vehicles each with a set of Jumper cables that you could safely crank a CUCV.

 

[wayne pick]

" do not try to jump the rear battery, you can send 24 volts to the car being used to jump it with and cause big problems."

Is this correct? It was my understanding that if both batteries were dead and you had 2 other 12V vehicles each with a set of Jumper cables that you could safely crank a CUCV.

Yes on the first question. No on the second. once the truck starts it will send 24v to the rear battery jump vehicle. You have to be real quick to disconnect the rear bat jump cables. Wouldn't try it. You can charge each battery separately by completely disconnecting all the cables including the ground on the front battery.

 

[wayne pick]

Exide 31s at Tractor Supply are also a good deal at $100 in my neck of the woods.

 

[hovenga67]

You can jump it with two cars or two battery chargers. The only way to get 24 volts is to go from ground on first battery to the positive on the second battery. If you treat each battery as a circuit you are fine. pos to pos. neg to neg. Its not hard. I have done it many times
Brent

 

[EMISSARYx]

Thx everyone for the help! The batteries were both new in March 2010, MAXX-65N from Chinamart. I was running my inverter at the time with a very small load of a laptop charger, I don't think it was from draining. From what I can gather the battery had a catastrophic internal failure in the form of a short or open circuit. After replacing the front battery, my problems were solved until both alternator belts belts wrapped themselves around the fan blade a hundred miles later. Should have seen me crying as I unwrapped them, reinstalled them and limped to a hotel for the night.

In summary, when you have a problem with a 27 y/o truck, first look at the parts you have replaced with modern junk before thinking it was something old.

I probably would have not had the battery failure with the military batteries, but from my experience the cheap ones usually work fine given they have enough power.

 

[Hasdrubal]

"You can jump it with two cars or two battery chargers. The only way to get 24 volts is to go from ground on first battery to the positive on the second battery. If you treat each battery as a circuit you are fine. pos to pos. neg to neg."

Thanks for clarifying that. Thats what I thought. For those posting incorrect information...why state as fact something you obviously are ill-informed about. It will only confuse some future reader of this post.

 

[mr.travo]

Emiss-

Glad you got it fixed and down the road again. I agree with you, I freak out and think it's something old and turns out it's the made in China crap!