Took the '67 289 Out for a Drive: New Battery Died

mmi · Jul 3, 2009

Yep.

Beautiful day. (but hot as hell - 100+ degrees)

Car didn't seem to overheat, but after about 45 min of running around in traffic, it just slowly died while idling at the local burger joint.

Wouldn't start without a jump after that, and battery seems to be low, as I hooked it up to a charger when I made it back home.

A very helpful and experienced senior suggested that I might have a loose/bad connection - I also repainted engine compartment before putting everything in and wondering where/how to start looking for the bad connection.

Car has:

New Orbital Battery (similar to Optima Red Top)

New Starter Solenoid

New 60A chrome Powermaster Alternator with 4" HiPo pulley

New Voltage Regulator

mmi · Jul 3, 2009

new signature with pic...

D.Hearne · Jul 3, 2009

You may also need to ditch that hi-po pulley for a smaller one to spin the alternator at a higher rpm. It could be turning too slow putting around town. Do you have a voltage or amp gauge ?

mmi · Jul 3, 2009

D.Hearne said:
You may also need to ditch that hi-po pulley for a smaller one to spin the alternator at a higher rpm. It could be turning too slow putting around town. Do you have a voltage or amp gauge ?

I was wondering the same thing. I don't have a guage. (Anything else I should check?) I think I read somewhere that the headlights should get brighter with rpms if the alternator is charging correctly.

But then it kinda makes me wonder how the original HiPos ever worked on the street with those larger pulley's?...

2+2GT · Jul 4, 2009

mmi said:
I was wondering the same thing. I don't have a guage. (Anything else I should check?) I think I read somewhere that the headlights should get brighter with rpms if the alternator is charging correctly.

But then it kinda makes me wonder how the original HiPos ever worked on the street with those larger pulley's?...

The 289HP dims a little at idle, that's all. I drove my 289HP with that pulley daily for many years. You have another problem. I once drove my Mom's car, with blown alternator disconnected, from Ohio to New Jersey, on just the battery.

D.Hearne · Jul 4, 2009

mmi said:
I was wondering the same thing. I don't have a guage. (Anything else I should check?) I think I read somewhere that the headlights should get brighter with rpms if the alternator is charging correctly.

But then it kinda makes me wonder how the original HiPos ever worked on the street with those larger pulley's?...

You really need an amp meter or a voltage gauge to see exactly what's going on. It could also be that the alternator isn't getting "turned" on when you rev it at first startup. There's a wire in the ignition circuit that exites the alternator to turn it on. It just shoots a spike of power to the alternator when you crank the car. I've had two 60's vehicles that had this circuit stop working and had to run a separate wire and switch to serve this function.

mmi · Jul 4, 2009

I'm going to replace the alternator pulley first, and then have it tested.

The car also has some left-over March underdrive pulleys (crank and water pump) that have been on since I bought the car. The 3.75-4.0" HiPo pulley was actually larger than the March alternator pulley, so maybe the combo with the March crank pulley is just too slow for the alternator. I'll put a stock alternator pulley back on, and see if that takes care of it.

jonfor · Jul 4, 2009

i keep mine on the battery charger like a junkie on a syringe.

Grabber70Mach · Jul 5, 2009

You said

New 60A chrome Powermaster Alternator with 4" HiPo pulley

Is it a 1 wire? If so I would bet that the combo between the alt needing higher RPM's to excite it to charge and the larger Hipo pulley spinning the alt slower is doing you no favors. If not I've seen VR bad that were brand new. You really should get a meter to check your voltage, at the battery you should have around 13.5-14.5 at idle with no accessories on. With accessories and high beams on you shouldn't drop below 12V.

wicked93gs · Jul 5, 2009

2+2GT said:
The 289HP dims a little at idle, that's all. I drove my 289HP with that pulley daily for many years. You have another problem. I once drove my Mom's car, with blown alternator disconnected, from Ohio to New Jersey, on just the battery.

not to go off topic, but from Ohio to NJ on just the battery? that would have to be during the daylight without a single stop for gas....even on my little 4 cylinders I was never able to drive for more than hour on battery power. If I turned the car off after about 1/2 hour it wouldn't start back up.

in regards to the issue, you need voltmeter and find out your volts at idle after jumping the car to even be able to trace own the problem, if it dies immediatley after taking the jumper cables off then its in the alternator circuit somewhere(whether the alternator itself or wiring) unless its just an old dead battery, but underdrive pulleys wont keep it from charging completely...they just reduce the amount of voltage at idle...well, in my experience with other cars anyway, regardless the first step is a voltmeter

hardsy · Jul 5, 2009

wicked93gs said:
not to go off topic, but from Ohio to NJ on just the battery? that would have to be during the daylight without a single stop for gas....even on my little 4 cylinders I was never able to drive for more than hour on battery power. If I turned the car off after about 1/2 hour it wouldn't start back up.

You could probably do it with a points ignition or do it with a diesel

nugget68 · Jul 6, 2009

My car did this same thing a couple weeks ago. It was probably the hottest day of the year. It just died at idle when I was getting ready to pull out of the parking lot. I had the jumper pack with me and started it back up, then as I went to pull out it died again. Finally I kind of power braked it to keep my RPM's up so I could pull out. It ran like with a miss when I started going. A couple hours after I got home she started right up and purred like a kitten, no jumper pack and no miss. It has ran fine ever since, though I havent driven it as long as I did that day and it hasnt been as hot...

ForceFed70 · Jul 6, 2009

I think the smartest thing to do would be to test the charging system. I really doubt that it's a problem with the pully because it doesn't sound like the car was idleing all that long. It's easy to test if it's the pully that's causing problems, so I'd at least test before swapping pullies.

To test the charging system, do the following:
- With engine off, turn on headlights and use a voltmeter to measure the battery voltatge. For a healthy and charged battery, you should see something around 12.5-13 volts (with headlights on)
- Now start the engine (headlights still on) and measure the battery voltage again. It should be 1-2 volts higher than when the engine was off (around 13.5-15 volts).
- If you want to test if it's the pully that is the problem, simply rev up the engine. If the voltage climbs to where it's supposed to be, it's an indicator that it's not charging at idle, possibly due to the pully (or the alternator is going bad).

aug0202 · Jul 6, 2009

Definately Do what everyone above is recommending also you mentioned that you repainted your engine bay. Check your grounds they need to be a solid metal on metal contact if you have a multi-meter you cab do this easily by putting the selector to ohms or the upside down horse shoe and one lead on the negative terminal of you battery and the other to bare metal on your car you are hoping to see as close to zero as possible. what it sounds like to me is a bad ground for your starting system. Too high of resistance will cause the battery to work harder to start. Causing it to drain upon intitial start and not recharge properly, because the alternator is only putting out small current and volts to kind of "trickle" charge the battery if the grounding resistance is too high the voltage wont go to the battery to recharge it. I hope it helps. good luck.

mmi · Aug 15, 2009

ForceFed70 said:
I think the smartest thing to do would be to test the charging system. I really doubt that it's a problem with the pully because it doesn't sound like the car was idleing all that long. It's easy to test if it's the pully that's causing problems, so I'd at least test before swapping pullies.

To test the charging system, do the following:
- With engine off, turn on headlights and use a voltmeter to measure the battery voltatge. For a healthy and charged battery, you should see something around 12.5-13 volts (with headlights on)
- Now start the engine (headlights still on) and measure the battery voltage again. It should be 1-2 volts higher than when the engine was off (around 13.5-15 volts).
- If you want to test if it's the pully that is the problem, simply rev up the engine. If the voltage climbs to where it's supposed to be, it's an indicator that it's not charging at idle, possibly due to the pully (or the alternator is going bad).

OK, here's what I did:

Car just sat for a month. Put a voltmeter on it: 12.4 volts. Turned on headlights, down to 12.05 volts. Reved engine with lights on, up to 12.25 volts.

So I then changed to a somewhat smaller pulley: Started up at 12.3 volts, lights on, back to 12.04 volts; reved engine for 30 seconds, up to 12.5 volts.

But... nowhere was it ever up near 13 volts or higher, and didn't see that big of a jump from reving engine - just a small bump up

mmi · Aug 15, 2009

aug0202 said:
Definately Do what everyone above is recommending also you mentioned that you repainted your engine bay. Check your grounds they need to be a solid metal on metal contact if you have a multi-meter you cab do this easily by putting the selector to ohms or the upside down horse shoe and one lead on the negative terminal of you battery and the other to bare metal on your car you are hoping to see as close to zero as possible. what it sounds like to me is a bad ground for your starting system. Too high of resistance will cause the battery to work harder to start. Causing it to drain upon intitial start and not recharge properly, because the alternator is only putting out small current and volts to kind of "trickle" charge the battery if the grounding resistance is too high the voltage wont go to the battery to recharge it. I hope it helps. good luck.

The resistance is 1.56 everywhere I check. If I have a bad ground, how do I find it?

Update: resistance is at 0.0 with car door closed (inside light off), 1.56 with door open

Trickle chrger now has battery up 10 12.9 volts (12.7 volts with car door open and inside light on)

Suggestions?

pabear89 · Aug 16, 2009

You painted the eng bay, Did you clean a grounding spot off the fenderwell for the starter sol and voltage reg?
They both need a good ground to operate correctly and the sheetmetal screws that hold them in place is not a good enough ground.

2+2GT · Aug 16, 2009

mmi said:
But then it kinda makes me wonder how the original HiPos ever worked on the street with those larger pulley's?...

The battery in these cars is 12V, but they run at 14, actually more like 14.2V.

The 289HP pulley works just fine, on a performance engine. The 289HP idles at 700 rpm, and the standard rear was a 3.50:1. With the high redline of the 289HP would fry an alternator with the small pulley.

mmi · Aug 16, 2009

2+2GT said:
The battery in these cars is 12V, but they run at 14, actually more like 14.2V.

The 289HP pulley works just fine, on a performance engine. The 289HP idles at 700 rpm, and the standard rear was a 3.50:1. With the high redline of the 289HP would fry an alternator with the small pulley.

I charged it up to 12.7 volts and just drove it to AutoZone. We put it on a machine and it only generated 2-3 amps at 2,000 rpm to the battery. Thought maybe it was a problem with the new voltage regulator, so I swapped the old VR unit back onto the car. 10 minutes later, same result. Drove it home, and next step appears to be to remove the new chrome 60 amp alternator and take it in to be bench tested. I actually hope it's the alternator - otherwise, I think I'll be on a wiring hunt for the problem.

As for the car's HiPo set up... I'll go back to the HiPo pulley, if that turns out not to have anything to do with the problem. I have a 5-speed swap transmission (with a taller than the 4spd stock final gear), so I bumped the rear gear from 3.50 to 3.89 - car runs much better on the highway with that combination (responsive, but still turns a low rpm at 65mph), and faster from a stop too.

mmi · Aug 16, 2009

D.Hearne said:
You really need an amp meter or a voltage gauge to see exactly what's going on. It could also be that the alternator isn't getting "turned" on when you rev it at first startup. There's a wire in the ignition circuit that exites the alternator to turn it on. It just shoots a spike of power to the alternator when you crank the car. I've had two 60's vehicles that had this circuit stop working and had to run a separate wire and switch to serve this function.

I'm going to bench test the new alternaor, but being that it's new, I have a hunch that this might be the bug - if I can trace the wire you are talking about. Do you know the wire for this 'start-up spike' that I should be looking for? ...For that matter, I wonder if I wired/hooked-up the new alterntor wrong

Took the '67 289 Out for a Drive: New Battery Died

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