So here's what happened. I got a bunch of solderless connectors from work, and since I'm working with wires so large, I don't have a crimp tool that fits. So, I'm banging the connectors with a hammer, against a stone. Pretty caveman-like, but it works great. So I was making a new lead to the positive side of the battery in a limited wire slack situation with the stone on my battery. I knew something might go wrong, but I risked it.

The first stroke of the connector, I heard a little splashing sound in the battery. After every stroke after that, there was no splash. There's no leakage or anything, and although it wasn't very reassuring, it seemed to be doing a-ok. However, tonight, I had the parking lights and my deck and sub on for a while. I left for a few minutes and came back to the sub's power light turning on and off. Knowing that it does this on low power, I looked in the trunk where I have a voltmeter installed and it said 7 volts. Yikes.

So I ran a few tests tonight and found out that it is draining a little too quick for comfort under a considerably low load as compared to most nights. It's usually just fine with the parking lights, sub, and deck on (at a low volume), but tonight it was struggling. Since I've been installing a remote start kit, I looked everywhere for small shorts but found none. There could be something that I'm unaware of though. I should probably disconnect my battery and see how it holds a charge, but I didn't get around to it - it was getting late.

What do you think? I don't really want to spend all this cash on a new battery to find out that it doesn't help ...

 

make sure all the crimps you made were good, and check the connections goin to the bad itself

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Synthead &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What do you think? I don't really want to spend all this cash on a new battery...</TD></TR></TABLE>You might have to, but try this first...
Charge it up good (charger or run the engine) then shut off & disconnect the battery cables. Check voltage after a couple hours, then after a couple more hours. I'm just guessing it'll discharge itself even with the cables disconnected.

Flakes of stuff from the plates can fall down to the bottom of the battery case, & cause an internal load (or short) inside the battery.

I did something similar once. I kept the hold-down bracket too tight, then suddenly the battery would drain itself. The battery case had warped just enough to do that. Couldn't see it until I put a straightedge across the top edge of the case.