dead battery

I have a 50 ford 239 flathead 6 volt system. Problem is i charged the battery and over night the battery died. The battery is new so i know its drawing charge somewhere. Where do i start?

 

Pull the negative terminal off. Connect your volt meter between the battery and that terminal. If voltage is read you have a draw. To find the source start pulling one fuse at a time till it reads Zero. Examine further the problem circuit found.

 

If you don't have a voltmeter, use a test light between one post and the removed cable.

If the light is on, you have a draw.

If you don't eliminate it with pulling any fuses, next place to try is disconnect the regulator.

 

Like F&J says, the cut out relay in the regulator could be hooped.

 

Was not fuses so now what?

 

Pulled neg cable and no light on test light.

 

50' Ford with a 6 volt is positive ground,you want to remove the positive cable to do the test.

 

Pulled pos cable no light on test light

 

did you recharge the battery since it died or the test won't work.

 

you need to charge battery leave both + and - off see if its going dead by itself.new dont always mean good.just went through same thing on a car at work new battery was bad.

 

How do check to see if volt.reg is good

 

If I understand what you tried, did you actually put a test light between the disconected pos cable and the pos post on the battery? Was it a 6 volt test light? ( I don't think a 12 volt test light will light on 6 volts, but not sure) If the answer to both was yes and you got no light, even a dim light, then the problem isn't draw. Your battery could be shorting out internally as mysteryman suggested. Charge the battery, put NO cables on it at all and see what it is like in a day or two. I 've had ones short out between the plates inside and do what you have going on.

Don

 

let us know what was wrong, good luck

 

Charging battery now. I'm thinking its a battery or volt. Reg. Problem

 

If you have a serviceable voltage regulator, you'll need to do some research and know exactly which terminals on the regulator to probe to check out put. To momentarily full field the alt/gen you'll need to apply full (6v) to the field windings while the engine is running. If you connect to the wrong terminal shit goes boom fast! (well maybe not as fast with 6v- I normally work with 24v-860v) FYI you'll want to be checking amp draw not voltage drop at the disconnected battery terminals.

 

Is the top of the battery clean and dry? I've seen voltage drains across the top of a number of batteries and one in particular was so bad it drained the battery in three hours to the point the truck wouldn't start.

If you have (and you need one) a volt meter check from one post across the top of the battery in several spots to see if you get a voltage reading. No reading is good but if you are showing voltage across the top of the case clean the top of the battery real well.

You need a specific set of instructions for testing six volt Ford regulators to test the regulator correctly. But you can check the points in the regulator to see if any are sticking.

 

Happened to me once. I couldn't figure it out until I turned the lights out in the shop and started to leave when I noticed the glove box light was on. I couldn't see it when the shop lights were on. It drained the battery overnight. I fixed that and my problem was solved. Probably something simple.

 

That battery charged up yet?

 

Battery was charged and i had a battery tender hooked up over night, next day went to start and battery went dead after a couple of seconds, i suspect bad batt.

 

And the verdict, what was the problem?