I took the truck down to Autozone today and the guy checked it out and said that it was fine. He said to try a new battery. I already got one so I'll put it in tomorrow and see what happens. And old school luvr, the side posts make it a little harder to remove/install the connectors, as well as jump-starting. The top mounted posts are easier to get to and have better grip with the jumper cables.

 

Hope the battery fixed your problem. If not could it be the Voltage Regulator going bad causing it not to up the voltage especially when you have a drain placed on the system.

 

1) "try a new battery"???? this guy doesn't know what he's doing (sounds an awful lot like the Canadian Tire idiots up here). why didn't he check your battery? but at least you already had a battery to change out.

2) how? there's so much room it's not funny. and it's not like a VW, where they put the positive terminal right beside the steel fender!

3) ok, i'll give ya that one, for most jumper cables (although i do have some pretty HD cables that'll grip them really well).

besides all that, how did the second battery do for you?

 

on my 2001 blazer my clip on my alternator was loose. jus had to push it in a little then it worked fine. this was after i swapped out alternator and battery.

 

Yeah I forgot to mention the part about turning the key off before reconnecting....oh well, glad yall caught it. But yeah I've done that several times with no adverse affects. I say that and next time I do it it'll fry everything though lol

 

2) Well there's always the most room with a top-post battery.

And here's an update guys... sorry it took me so long to write back. It seems as if I just had a bad battery connection. About a week ago, I left my jimmy sitting for about 24 hours in the bitter cold (I think the high temp reached mid to high 20s) and when I went to turn it on, the lights on the dash came on fine but as soon as I turned the key to start, everything died. I tightened the terminals, the truck started and I haven't been having voltage problems since. The voltage in most cases is just a few ticks below "redline" on that gauge on the dash. Never reached the red zone, but sometimes it lingers pretty close. I think I might return the new battery I mentioned earlier to the store since this older one is fine ever since I tightened it down. The off-roading might've shaken something loose.

 

Some people are luckier than others. I am on a volunteer fire dept. While doing truck maintenance we had a call. We busted our asses getting the truck back together and one short cut we took was to just put the battery terminal on and give it a good twist as we pushed it down. on the way back to the station, every light in the truck DOUBLED in brightness and the magic smoke came out of the radio and electronic siren. Kinda embaressing when the fire truck is on fire. LOL. When we got to the station we started checking things out and found that pesky battery cable had come off. The altenator had gone into a high voltage condition without the battery in the circuit. Hooked the battery back up and checked altenator voltage. Normal. Next step was to replace darn near every light bulb that was on when this happened. My philosophy is, Computers dont like voltage spikes. we put surge suppressors in our homes to protect our computers from spikes we cant prevent. Why CAUSE spikes in our car's computer ON PURPOSE! Buy a cheap multimeter and learn to use it. if it prevents you from replacing one part that didnt need to be replaced then it paid for itself. Having the right tool to do the job properly and safely just makes sense. Ok - im done preaching now. Have a great day everyone!