RE: M1008 Dead Battery(s)?

From: danjahn@qlink.ca
Date: Wed Apr 19 2006 - 10:03:26 PDT

Hi List

       A better answer for my step 1 would have been:

 1) Clean all conection points for battery cables at the batteries and on
the vehicle.

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Military Vehicles Mailing List [mailto:mil-veh@mil-veh.org]On
Behalf Of danjahn@qlink.ca
Sent: April 19, 2006 10:53 AM
To: Military Vehicles Mailing List
Subject: Re: [MV] M1008 Dead Battery(s)?

Brian

     I'm not up on M1008's but have had my share of baterry problems.

     Two simple things to do before pulling your hair out or spending money.

     1) remove and clean all battery posts.

      2) remove batteries and take them somewhere ( battery shop ) for
"load" testing.

Let me or the "list" know how things go.

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Military Vehicles Mailing List [mailto:mil-veh@mil-veh.org]On
Behalf Of Brian Placzankis
Sent: April 19, 2006 11:44 AM
To: Military Vehicles Mailing List
Subject: [MV] M1008 Dead Battery(s)?

Hello all,

The darnedest thing happened. My M1008 has been running great for well over
a year since I refurbed my alternators. One of my 6TLs that had been
marginal "recovered" and has even managed to restore the healthy "green eye"
My other 6TL had always been fine since getting the truck.

On Sunday, I had to go into work to get some papers for a trip. I did my
business and left the truck started normal. Next I went to WalMart for some
leather product in the craft section. I went to the parking lot to leave
and the truck started normal. At no time leading up to the failure did the
starter sound weak, nor were the voltages low on the voltmeter. Next I went
to the filling station where I topped it off with diesel. Went I went to
start the truck, the starter would try but would barely just budge the
engine. The voltage was completely cut by half on the voltmeter. I tried a
jump on the perennially weaker of the 2 batteries and it made no difference.
Next I tried a jump on the "better" one and again it would slowly move the
engine but it would not turn over. It was like what you see when someone
cranks a battery way down to its endpoint only no cranking had ever taken
place. My wife came out and I attempted jumps again. First the bad
battery - no luck. Then I tried the good battery and this time it fired
right up no slowness or anything. The running voltage was also right where
it belonged, way up in the green and just shy of the red. This was good
because I was able to get the truck home. When I parked it on my driveway,
I shut it down and then tried to start it without a jump - no luck once.

Here is the strange part, the green eyes on the battery both look green
still yet I am getting symptoms of discharged batteries. Can they mimic
being healthy while being all the while dead or near dead. I have no idea
how old these batteries are, I have had the truck for 2.5 years with these
batteries but there is no telling how old they already were when I got them.

I connect a charger to each of them in an attempt to assess their condition.
The weaker would charge at 4A with the charger set to the 6A setting and
would slowly drop over the course of a few minutes to about 2A on the
charger built in gauge. The "strong" battery would not take any charge, it
was right at 0A on the guage. This was also the battery that the jump did
work on the one time.

I had to go on travel for a couple of days and this morning I decided to try
again this morning with a jump. Since the engine was now cold, the
glowplugs came into play. The voltage drops from halfway down (in the low
yellow I think) to zero with the glowplugs energized. The best I could do
was a very slow turn of the engine with a jump. My cables (cheap thin ones)
may not be up to it as they were quite warm after trying.

Could it be another problem? Could it be the infamous starter relay? The
starter itself? The voltmeter reads a massive voltage dropoff so I think
that it is the batteries though they sure still look green through the
indicator eye. Does anyone have any other good diagnostic things to try?
These batteries started on all of the coldest days of winter with no
problems. Now that it gets warm...nothing. Hmmmm... My own guess is that
my better battery has taken a hike. I woul definitely like to confirm this
before dropping the $ for a new one(s).

Will anyone be selling 6T batteries at Aberdeen this year?

thanks,

Brian Placzankis
1985 M1008 CUCV

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