Battery drained! Faulty clock?

FlyingPete · Mar 26, 2016

Prior to my incident with the broken throttle cable last weekend, I'd noticed that the original square clock in my 90 was doing strange things. The minute hand and second hand were going round together. I dismissed this as an internal mechanical fault- especially as the next day it appeared to have fixed itself.

The Landy's been parked up for a week awaiting a new accelerator cable (now fitted.) And now it won't start. The 100Ah battery has been drained over the course of a week, and previously I've left it at least this long with no trouble. The only things drawing power when parked are the clock, radio backup and alarm system- neither of which should be drawing anything significant. Which makes me wonder if it's too much of a coincidence that the clock goes nuts at the same time as the battery gets drained...

tottot · Mar 26, 2016

Just disconnect clock and see if that sorts the problem.

FlyingPete · Mar 26, 2016

Disconnected it as a precaution. Unfortunately the ammeter function of my multimeter appears to be broken, so couldn't check the current draw at this point.
Don't need the clock anyway as there's one on the radio. Might use it as an excuse to add a couple of switches there instead

Kwakerman · Mar 26, 2016

FlyingPete said:
Disconnected it as a precaution. Unfortunately the ammeter function of my multimeter appears to be broken, so couldn't check the current draw at this point.
Don't need the clock anyway as there's one on the radio. Might use it as an excuse to add a couple of switches there instead

Multimeters usually have an internal fuse to protect the ammeter function, it may be accessible from under the battery cover, if not whip the back off it and have a look. May as well try and fix that then you can test for current drain

Shanec · Mar 26, 2016

No way would clock drain battery in a week

Make sure loom wires insulations not burned through in engine bay

TheQ · Mar 27, 2016

I had a digital clock that the previous owner had fitted that was combined with the interior light. When that went faulty it certainly did cause the battery to die over a week. At that time I was only using the 110 for a 20 mile return journey each Sunday. On the first failure I recharged the battery ran the 110. No problem parked up.
Following Sunday dead again. Charged the battery again went looking for the problem found and removed clock. Flat battery never occurred again.

FlyingPete · Mar 27, 2016

Clock's been disconnected. Jump-started it and went for a decent drive up and down a dual-carriageway. Stopped for fuel... and it wouldn't start again. Suspect a cell in the battery's gone bad hence the low voltage and lack of amps for cranking. Off to Halfords to return my year-old battery I guess

FlyingPete · Mar 31, 2016

So tracked down the problem- the starter was on its last legs and eventually died on tuesday. It's gone to a dead short circuit across the windings.
I have another starter which tests fine on the ground- hook up some jump leads to it and a battery, power up the solenoid and away it goes. But put it on the vehicle and you just get the solenoid click and no cranking.

Could it be a bad solenoid? I'm thinking that off the car the pinion moves freely, but on the engine it can't pull the pinion all the way across into the flywheel, and hence won't engage the contacts for the motor.

Maybe I can make one good starter out of two...

Wimblowdriver · Mar 31, 2016

The click could be the starter engaging with the flywheel, but not enough power in the battery to crank it over. First thing I would do is charge the battery and try again.

FlyingPete · Apr 1, 2016

Battery is fully charged (I stuck it on the charger to make sure) and the problem remains. Might try bypassing the solenoid with a screwdriver to power up the motor directly- if it spins then I suspect the solenoid is at fault. Can they be swapped over easily between motors? The solenoid on the dead motor is fine...

zeaphod · Apr 1, 2016

Sorry to point out the obvious - but make sure the earth at the engine/starter is good. Use a jump lead from the battery Neg to the starter body to eliminate the chance of a duff earth.

FlyingPete · Apr 1, 2016

Will check the earths over the weekend.

An idea! If there is indeed an earthing fault, and so current is going where it shouldn't during starting, could that be a factor in the accelerator cable failing? My logic is that if battery->chassis is good and battery->engine/gearbox is not, it could have been using the wire in the cable as an alternative current path, which obviously it's not meant to do. It did seem a bit of a coincidence that the throttle cable snapped at the same time as starting became an issue.

FlyingPete · Apr 5, 2016

The mighty White Elephant rumbled back into life this afternoon

I swapped the solenoid from one motor (the one with a short-circuit) onto the other, but it back together, and it sprang into life again. Currently no exhaust fitted apart from the downpipe which sounds excellent

Battery drained! Faulty clock?

FlyingPete

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tottot

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FlyingPete

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Kwakerman

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Shanec

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TheQ

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FlyingPete

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FlyingPete

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Wimblowdriver

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FlyingPete

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zeaphod

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