Loss of battery charge

I do not know of likely but if you have a volt meter with a dc amp setting (not milliamp) pull off the + cable put the red meter lead on the batt.take the blk lead and place it on the + cable .with everything off there should be no amps flowing thru the meter,if there is try pulling each fuse to see if it drops off.(most fuses are controlled thru the key switch) but some might be hot all the time.It will be a process of elimination.

What makes you think that there is grounding in the harness? Most of the time its the voltage regulator or the alt. out causing the charging  problems, more so the voltage regulator. Not sure which one you have, 1-type Plugs into the fuse box, 1- type is on the engine block same side as the alt.The one on the fuse box tends to get loose , some have zip tied them in to keep it from happening again

Tommy

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If you have all that disconnected, I would look for a dead cell in the battery

Tommy

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I agree with Tommy. If you have that stuff all pulled, if it wasn't the battery something would be getting awful hot.

What Tinbender said is the key thing here – a short to ground would pull all the amps the battery was capable of and melt the shorted wire in no time flat.  So it is likely that the problem is actually a bad cell in the battery causing the other cells to discharge.  I'd try a different battery in there and see what happens.

if it is not a maintence free batt. use a hygrometer to measure the acid levels in the cells then use a load tester to stress the batt. you could look at amps the battery takes when it is charged and a fast top off to a full charge means that the batt. is maybe sulfated,and junk

Just so somebody doesn't run out and buy the wrong thing.. It would be a hydrometer that measures specific gravity of a liquid rather than a hygrometer which is humidity instrument.  

you are correct sorry bout the mind fart

Just wondering if you found the source of your battery discharging?? We would like to know what the outcome was, as it could help someone else sometime.

Max

A volt lmeter will tell you where the charging fault lies.  On my tractor, I had spurious drainage so I simply put a cut-off switch on the negative terminal of the battery and haven't lost a charge since.  I do have a Delco 12Si 60+ amp alternator on my tractor, so any low battery condition is rapidly re-charged, too.

it might help if you had a volt ohm meter with a 10 amp or so dc scale on it,go inline with the electrical system with the key off to see if the is a drain from the battery then turn the key on but do not engage the start circuit to see how much drain is there ,there might be some to run dash gauges but the amps would be low.but for the battery to be drained with it sitting with the key off I suspect that you will see it with the key off.

I'm having the same problem, I've had to charge it to start the last few times. I will disconnect the battery, check the cells and charge today, and start there. My meter has a clamp on inductive pickup I finally have a reason to use once I get it up and running

make sure that your clamp on the wire meter is dc readable most are ac.

Come to think of it I believe you're right David , but I didn't get to use it. The system is not charging. The reason I had to throw the big charger on to start it every time is I was always in too big of a hurry to give it a full charge. With the small “smart” charger I was able to bring it up to 90% before I could wait no more and it seems to be holding the charge. Just sitting the battery reads 12 volts. With the small charger set at 4 amps charge the battery reads 13.8 volts. With the tractor running the battery reads 12 volts. If I can get home while there's still daylight I will pull the alternator off and take it to the starter/alt shop across from my store tomorrow and post the results.

remember to check the since wire ,unless you have done a single wire conversion