Hey all,

Followed the battery terminal mod procedure (http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2755252&postcount=5) this evening and when I finished I was unable to start my truck because my batteries are almost dead. Enough power to barely light the dash, but not enough power to turn the engine over. Any ideas why this would happen?

The only thing I can see in the procedure that I may have done wrong is that when I was hooking the batteries back up I didn't connect the grounds first. I realized after the fact that I hooked them up in the following order: passenger side positive, passenger side negative, drivers side negative, drivers side positive. Could this have done it? Or maybe if the bolts (not the nuts) are too tight?

Also, I tried hooking up the booster cables with our Dodge Grand Caravan and it charges a bit, but not enough for it to turn over. Is this normal? Do I have to boost BOTH batteries at the same time in order to get it going? IE - Another diesel truck or 2 other vehicles?

it is best to connect the grounds last. that way wrenches don't spark when tightening the hot cable if you slip or touch something metal.if you touch metal after when doing the grounds no harm.(unless you touch the hot)
when installing the bolts turn them in finger tight only and then with 2 wrenches hold the bolt and tighten the nut to the cable(its actually loosen the nut on the bolt as if you are removing the nut)
if you turn the bolt in any tighter than finger tight you run the risk of pulling the imbeded nut out through the lead that you need your cable to connect to.
if you havent dammaged the battery yet then a bad connection is most likely your problem.
when attacthing cables this way I usually cut the plastic coating off of the cable terminals but only around the flat part of the terminals.sometimes the plastic can get caught between the terminals and the battery and cause a bad connection-especially where you are making the posative connection between the 2 batteries.
when you try cranking the starter,feel the cables at your new connections,where bad connections are present it will be warm to very hot depending on how much current is tring to flow so be careful not to get burned.

I completely removed the rubber hood on all connections and used a cordless drill with a wire brush attachment to clean them up all nice and shiny. I then coated everything with dielectric grease and assembled.

I have a neighbor across the street with a newer Chevy Duramax. I'll ask him tomorrow if he can boost me. I did some Googling and I see that it's almost impossible to jump start a diesel (2 batteries) with a gasoline vehicle that has only one.

not impossable but you might have to let the gas car run for a while so the alternator on it can charge up your batteries.then provide a boost.
the quality and wire gauge of your booster cables has a lot to do with jump starting too-you can never have too heavy a set of jumper cables.

sometimes if your not carefull when you tighten the bolts to much and it will pull the post apart on the battery (the bolt acts like a puller by over tightening the bolt the bolt bottoms out and then pulls the lead post out of the battery) i have seen this before and the battery is garbage unless its side post and top post battery. hope this is'nt what happened to you batteries are not cheap. good luck and let us know how you make out

Do a load test on the batteries ONE at a TIME? May be the battery was bad to begin with. Better connection just exploit it better.

May be it is shorted also based on the way you connect the battery, who knows. You cannot jump it if the battery is/are shorted.

I emailed the guy I bought the truck from last night (super nice guy) and asked if he remembered how long it's been since the batteries were replaced. He replied almost immediately and said that the last time he had them tested one battery needed to be replaced and the other was borderline, so "they're probably due".

So i'm thinking I just need to buy new batteries. I'm kinda choked. Not good timing for us right now financially! Too many things happening at once. I'm having the "I should've just let well enough alone" thoughts today! haha Tried to make something better and went from having a running truck to a non-running truck. Frustrating.

So with that being said.. any recommendations for batteries? I live in Calgary, Alberta so we got coooooold winters up here. The current batteries appear to have 875 CCA's each..

I am not sure what is available in Canada but there are batteries with 1000 CCA here south of the border. So, I am sure it is there too.

You know that you want to replace both otherwise the bad one will eat up the new very fast.

Alright so this evening I had another look and noticed that the passenger side ground on the negative cable was loose. Tightened it up and then asked the neighbor with the diesel to boost me and he did, but he insisted that we didn't need to hook up both batteries at the same time. So of course, that didn't work.
Hooked up my van and my other neighbor offered to hook up his van. Once we did that, I was able to get it started. Ran for about 10 minutes and then sputtered and blew some white smoke.. I got to the pedal in time to rev it a bit and keep it running. Ran for about 2 minutes more and then started to sputter and blow white smoke again. This time I wasn't able to keep it running. When it died, I tried starting it again and both batteries were still dead.

So I took out the batteries and took them to the local Canadian Tire for a load test. Both batteries failed. Looks like we're a one vehicle family again until next pay check..

Even though I now know that both batteries are bad, it still doesn't make sense to me that the truck was running fine before I did the battery terminal mod, and now all of a sudden it won't even keep a charge AFTER it's running?! It seems like too much of a coincidence to me.

On a side note, the only ground I haven't cleaned yet is one of the most important ones. The one under the passenger side inner fender, attached to the frame. I can't get my inner fender off because the bolts just spin free. I reach around behind and I can't feel any nuts attached to the back. Is there a trick to it?

batterys need to fully charged to do a loads test properly.
you might want to stick them on a trickle charger for a few days and then get them tested again.
might be that you have a draw some place like dome lights or even a bad alternator can cause problems.

When I put the multimeter on them they were both reading ~12.8v.

ok sounds good then just trying to add some info to make sure things were done right.
ive seen a lot of batterys thrown out when load tested right after extended cranking when they were drawn down-no way for them to pass a load test in that condition.

If the battery is load tested at the store, they usually charge it first for a few minutes.

My battery passed the voltmeter test but did not pass the load test. As soon as I put load tester on, it shows 0. Turns out the battery have a short when I brought it to AZ. Especially when you do it when both still connected. When you do a volt test, do it one at a time.

One of the best advice from this board was to get my own battery load tester from Harbor Freight for under $20. So I can detect battery problems right away at home.

This would be a good time to go to top post batteries, with marine terminals. There is a special place in Hell set aside just for the guys who invented the side-terminal battery. There is an air-conditioned Cadillac sitting there, but they have no tools and it has a side-terminal battery . . .

Are marine terminals that much better than the side terminals with the 3/8" bolts mod?

Are marine terminals that much better than the side terminals with the 3/8" bolts mod?

Yes. Side terminals are not as durable as top posts, they are more likely to have corrosion problems while also being harder to maintain, even with the mod, you need tools to connect and disconnect the battery cables, increasing the chances of contacting hot and ground, and they put the cable connection into a confined space between the battery and other things such as (on my Sub) turbo intake duct and windshield washer tank.

With top posts and marine terminals, you only need tools one time (to put on the terminals), you are working with all the space you need, you can reverse the battery on the left side so that the positive is away from the fender, you can add loads simply by undoing the wing nut and dropping the new lug on, you can disconnect batteries for storage, and you have easy access for using jumper cables, while also having much better contact areas than are provided by the bolt. In addition, it takes longer to dig out the socket to unbolt the battery retainer than to disconnect the cables if I want to swap batteries -- since I'm standardized on marine terminals, I can move batteries from one vehicle to another as needed.

The bolt mod is good to tide you over until you get new batteries, but the $10 cost of a couple of sets of brass marine terminals will pay itself off over the lifespan of the vehicle.

Any pics of what they look like?

Any pics of what they look like?

Marine terminals can be found at any car parts place, even Walmart has them. They are a terminal that fits a top post, with a screw and wing nut to connect the cables. I advise getting the brass ones.

This is what RangeSafety's talking about

http://www.harborfreight.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/370x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/image_3721.jpg

I have this set up in the barn, hooked up to the solar panels... I love the idea of using this on my truck too.... Range, yer a genius!

Problem >>>>> "I then coated everything with dielectric grease and assembled."

Never-ever-never-ever-grease the battery terminals......

Dielectric grease does not conduct electricity, so when you coat the battery ends you are basically creating a bad connection... Best to assemble the ends on tight and spraying a coating of paint on them. Some use battery terminal protector spray but it's messy.. I use a clear acrylic spray. It's clear and if you ever need to take them off it's a breeze.

Problem >>>>> "I then coated everything with dielectric grease and assembled."

Never-ever-never-ever-grease the battery terminals......

Dielectric grease does not conduct electricity.

Thank you for pointing this out. I can almost guarantee this is the problem then! I knew it was something stupid. *sigh* Even though both batteries failed the load test, something still wasn't adding up. Truck has been running fine on bad batteries since I bought it in May, but then as soon as I did this it stopped running. When I get home I'll wipe it off and let you guys know what happens.

Alright so I got out the dish soap and water today, as well as my wife's nail polish remover, and got all the connections nice and clean and dry again. Put everything back together, and no change. Acting like the batteries are dead still. Got a boost from the neighbor, got it running, let it sit for ~15 minutes, shut it off and tried to restart. Nothing but clicking.

I'm pretty sure I broke the battery terminals when I tightened them the first time. While I was cleaning out the inside of the threads with a Q-Tip, I noticed the inside threads are wiggling around. Oh well... I need to get new batteries anyways. I suspect as soon as I get the new batteries, everything will be okay.

Yes, those terminal is just a nuts embedded between the lead. Lead is soft so overtime, it is getting loose. If you tightened too much, the nuts looses its hold to the lead.

Was able to purchase new Motomaster Eliminator batteries from Canadian Tire today. 1050 CA / 875 CCA. Made sure to finger-tighten the bolts this time and then tightened up the nuts.

Holy smokes what a difference when you crank it over! The old ones were definitely bad.. even before I broke the threads.

Nice, Ryan; glad you got it worked out! Is the triple-warranty deal still on?

Yes, they do have it. But I think you have to ask for it because the guy didn't mention it to me. AFTER I had paid, I noticed that one of the tags attached to the battery itself had the 'triple your warranty' offer on it. It's an extra $10 per battery:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q165/ryan_birch/1996%20Chevy%20Silverado%20K2500/IMG00072-20100808-2035.jpg

Sounds like an awesome battery. Glad you get it fixed. I know it is expensive but at least it is only the battery can be worst.

Yes, they do have it. But I think you have to ask for it because the guy didn't mention it to me. AFTER I had paid, I noticed that one of the tags attached to the battery itself had the 'triple your warranty' offer on it. It's an extra $10 per battery:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q165/ryan_birch/1996%20Chevy%20Silverado%20K2500/IMG00072-20100808-2035.jpg

We're instructed not to offer it up front, and at some locations we pull the tags off prior to sale.

It's not in the companys interest to offer free batteries for 9 years.

If you ask however, you shall recieve, there are limitations however.