New Wiring Harness, Battery's Dead in 1 Min

D

DeWalt23

New member
Looking for suggestions...

I've just got done installing a new 14 circut wiring harness from kwik wire. Installation went great but now that I've had the my 1973 Scout II running one. I've got a small problem.

Yesterday I hooked up the battery, fired up my Scout up for the 1st time and let it run for about 4 minutes. Turned off the Scout, unhooked the positive side of the battery. Came back a half our later and was going to show the old lady that its back up and running. Hooked up the positive side of the battery, turned the key and all I got was a "click".

I've got almost no power, radio wouldn't even turn on. So I took the battery to o'reilly's and was able to swap it out. It only showed 69% charge. Brought the new battery back and hooked it up. Turned the key to acc on the column to pull out a cd and everything went dead within 45 seconds. I can't even get the starter to turn.

So it is possible I've got a short or grounding issues that could cause a battery to drain with 45 seconds and leave me with almost no juice.

Starting to get frustration and looking for help. Thanks in advance.
 
Welocme to the board!, how is yout batterry grounded? Did you check all of your gorunds during install? Is the block grounded?
 
Thanks. The battery is grounded to both the engine, just above the steering pump and to frame on a bolt near the radiator. These two are the same as before I did the rewire.
 
You have something wired wrong and have a direct positive to ground. It won't spark it wont make any noise it will just short out the battery and give you a no start situation.

I hate to say it but start checking all your connections and see if you have something backwards or to the wrong place.
 
What chris said... He has done "re-wires"; I haven't...

Also, when it started the first time, did you check the ammeter or voltmeter when it was running?

Did you test the current battery? Assume you have a multi-meter of some kind since you rewired the vehicle. Maybe you got a bad battery from the parts store...

Btw, the correct way to disconnect the battery on a vehicle is to disconnnect the neg cable first (assuming a neg ground electrical system...); not the pos cable...

Does not matter much today with sealed batteries, but sparks can cause a battery to explode "in the days of yore".
 
Okay. I'll look back into the wiring on my ignition hot wires to check for a direct ground. Thanks guys....
 
dewalt23 said:
okay. I'll look back into the wiring on my ignition hot wires to check for a direct ground. Thanks guys....
Click to expand...


Don't just check the ignition wires. Check all the wires. It could be something super simple.



I've done 3.5 complete Scout rewires and stuff still gets by me... It May be simple 'a to b' connections but when you have 50 'a to b's things can get messed up.
 
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