I have an 89 GT 5.0 vert that to this point has had very few problems. I recently drove the car, then parked it for 20 minutes and the battery was completely dead. I replaced the battery and found it ran great again until I parked it overnight and the battery was dead again the next morning. I've tested and the alternator is getting plenty of voltage and the car runs great if the battery has enough juice to turn it over. Here are some other symptoms:
Any thoughts on a process to start troubleshooting this? Thanks in advance, everyone.
- When I attempt to charge the battery using a Battery Tender with the positive and negative cables connected, the battery does not charge at all. If I remove the positive and negative cables, the battery charges fine.
- I left the charger on overnight, but because the battery won't charge while it is hooked up, it took about 12 hours to take the battery from 12.5v to 0.5V
- I accidentally cut the line that went to the ground and the light in the hood as well. Wondering if that could create an open circuit that would rapidly drain a battery?
- I removed the starter relay cover to inspect and found that one of the wires had its cover worn off (it was one of the wires that was at the bottom of the stack - it goes down and forward). I wrapped that up - but now the gauges on the left half of the cluster - tach and battery - don't work...and the gas light is stuck on. The gauges on the right hand side - speed, temp and fuel seem to be fine.
- The aftermarket stereo stopped working (the least of my concerns).
Any thoughts on a process to start troubleshooting this? Thanks in advance, everyone.