Hello everyone,
My '62 battery died completely after just 3 weeks of storage. Not enough juice left to even make the anmeter show a discharge. Obviously I have a slow drain somewhere. First, some history:
I bought the car this past May. It is a fairly stock '62 327 / FI car. When the Passport truck arrived with the car, it fired up on their truck, we moved it into my driveway, and after a few minutes it stalled. The car then would not crank (though it had some juice). I installed a new Napa medium quality battery and got the car running. At that time the car was not running well and was idling too low to keep the battery from being in discharge at idle. I did some tuning on the car and it ran fine all summer and had no problems whatsoever (battery or otherwise).
In September I decided to get an original dual point distributor for the car and found a someone who was good enough to trade one with me for my single point out of a '63. I removed the old distributor and shipped it to him and he shipped me back the correct '62 distributor. I can't recall if I disconnnected the battery for the R-n-R or just the coil wires. From the time I pulled the old distributor to when I finally put the new back into the car was probably 4 weeks. Prior to this the car hadn't sat for more than 2-3 weeks w/out being driven.
After installation the car fired and ran w/out problem for the hour or so I tuned and drove it. I did use the windshield wipers for the first time during that trip and realized quickly that the switch would not allow me to turn them off (it just spun in it's socket--but that is another issue--I think). Regardless, to turn them off I disconnected the lead from the wiper motor to the ballast resistor. This solved that problem and I went on my way. I never reattached it since I haven't had the inclination to fix the switch itself.
Since then it has snowed and rained and generally not been Corvette weather in these parts. Saturday was clear, warm, and dry and I thought I'd fire up the car and get another drive in before the weather really turned and that is when I discovered the battery was dead.
Any leads on what's going on here? Would disconnecting the wiper motor somehow drain the battery? Might I have bigger problems? The next day I put jumper cables on the car and let it charge for 15 minutes and it was enough to crank the engine 15 - 20 seconds before draining again.
Thanks for any insight.
My '62 battery died completely after just 3 weeks of storage. Not enough juice left to even make the anmeter show a discharge. Obviously I have a slow drain somewhere. First, some history:
I bought the car this past May. It is a fairly stock '62 327 / FI car. When the Passport truck arrived with the car, it fired up on their truck, we moved it into my driveway, and after a few minutes it stalled. The car then would not crank (though it had some juice). I installed a new Napa medium quality battery and got the car running. At that time the car was not running well and was idling too low to keep the battery from being in discharge at idle. I did some tuning on the car and it ran fine all summer and had no problems whatsoever (battery or otherwise).
In September I decided to get an original dual point distributor for the car and found a someone who was good enough to trade one with me for my single point out of a '63. I removed the old distributor and shipped it to him and he shipped me back the correct '62 distributor. I can't recall if I disconnnected the battery for the R-n-R or just the coil wires. From the time I pulled the old distributor to when I finally put the new back into the car was probably 4 weeks. Prior to this the car hadn't sat for more than 2-3 weeks w/out being driven.
After installation the car fired and ran w/out problem for the hour or so I tuned and drove it. I did use the windshield wipers for the first time during that trip and realized quickly that the switch would not allow me to turn them off (it just spun in it's socket--but that is another issue--I think). Regardless, to turn them off I disconnected the lead from the wiper motor to the ballast resistor. This solved that problem and I went on my way. I never reattached it since I haven't had the inclination to fix the switch itself.
Since then it has snowed and rained and generally not been Corvette weather in these parts. Saturday was clear, warm, and dry and I thought I'd fire up the car and get another drive in before the weather really turned and that is when I discovered the battery was dead.
Any leads on what's going on here? Would disconnecting the wiper motor somehow drain the battery? Might I have bigger problems? The next day I put jumper cables on the car and let it charge for 15 minutes and it was enough to crank the engine 15 - 20 seconds before draining again.
Thanks for any insight.
Comment