ok, i have a 91 formula that i converted over to carb. i've been having major battery draining issues. the battery will not keep a charge. i jump the car, go for a drive, and as soon as i turn it off all battery power is gone. the volt meter gauge in the car reads around 9. Could this be a bad ground or a live wire somewhere drawing power? i have a new alternator, starter and battery. i have the car setup like a carb car. i cut back the wire harness all the way to the driver side near the firewall. snipped all the uneeded wires and capped them. so what does this sound like? bad ground or sneaky live wire drawing power? I still have power windows, all interior lights, all functioning exterior lights.. Also what does a relay do? i'm trying to learn about wiring.

 

a relay is an electrical device. it is used to control large loads with very small control signals. there will be a set of small signal wires in the relay, when the signal is given to it from another source, ie fan switch, it closes a set of contacts, thus closing the larger circuit and allowing current to flow through it. this is more important in DC than in AC of a similar scale. if you need a 30 amp circuit for the fans, you would have to get big heavy duty switches to turn the fan on and off, and you would have large wire running all over the place and you will have a voltage drop, enough that you may damage your component. with a relay the larger wire carrying the 30 amps runs almost directly from the power source to the load, and is broken with a relay controlled by the small wires, allowing the use of smaller switches and components, as well as a great reduction in voltage drop.

wow that was a long one.

as for the drain, you can get a light of some sort that you connect in series with the battery. with the car off, if you have a current leak, the bulb will be on. them you can pull fuses one by one till the bulb goes out. that will let you know what circuit it is and then you need to trace it from there. it can be a real PITA

look i even made some pics

 

Like the post said before.

Consider a relay an electric switch, a low amps signal operate a switch that control high amps.

Pull the negative barrey cable from the batt. connect a test light from the neg terminal to the chassis. If it lights you have a short. Pull fuses until it goes away. That is the circut with the short. You may have a short in mutiple circuts. So do it this way...

Remomve fuses until the test light goes out. Then leve that fuse out and reinsert the other. if one of them makes the light turn back on the you have a short in two circuts.

If you pull all fuses and the light stays on, then trace the positve terminal to the starter and look for a short. And trace the wire from the start to the main fuse box for a short.

 

Oh,

If your volts are only 9 check the alternator wiring. It may not be recharging the battery and you may only be running on the battery.

You may have cut one too many wires.

The easy fix is to convert to one wire aletenatr and hook it directly to the battery.

 

how is the alternator supposed to be wired? i have a standard thirdgen alternator. right now i have a hot wire going to it and thats it.

how do i wire the fan? right now i just hooked up some wire from the fans to a small switch in the car. the negative is ground to the car and the possitive i have hooked up to the possitive battery terminal.

Also i have an electric external fuel pump witch is hooked up to a switch. basicall the same way as the fan.

 

Your alternater is not wired correctly.

It takes a plug and the "hot" wire going to ith that you mentioned.
Pull up a wiring diagram and improvise.

Fix that first.

I cant offer further advice since I don't have one to look at.

Easy fix would be to convert to one wire self exciting alernator.

 

To wire the fan, follow the wiring diagram with the relay.


What you would do is run a relay to that small switch in the car, and have the relay turn on the fan.

If you have large wires running everywhere, you are asking for trouble (fire). Also, fuse the small relay wires.

 

well i have the plug that goes to the alternator and i have a hot wire to it and it's grounded. The ignition wire is the yellow one right? i have that wire running to the alternator or starter i believe. i don't mean to be a pain in the ***, but i'm just so incredibly frustrated with this car. can some one draw me a diagram of how the ignition, alternator, starter, and battery are supposed to be wired... i may have just ran a wrong wire somewhere. also the possitive battery terminal goes to the starter and to the alternator, but theres another red wire that flows into a connector that then turns into a red and orange. i imagine that power to the interior things? i'm just so lost and overwelmed. i just wanna drive the car i have been patiently fixing up and throwing all my money at. if i end up not being able to fix this wiring issue i'm just gonna sell this car the way it is. i'm just sooo very fed up. help me if you can thanks.

P.s. i don't really wanna invest into a different alternator cause theres a good chance thats not even the problem, so then i'll be down more money and faced with the same ****. as it is i just bought a new alternator for nothing thinking that was the problem.

 

The alternatoer is not properly wired. Period.

I don't know how it all went together because I did not cut the wires.

Take the alternator off. Take it to an alternator shop and convert it to one wire.

Problem solved.

 

well the alternator has one power wire from the battery hooked to the back, and then one to the plug. which one would i need to eliminate? basically i'm asking whats to convert which one would they remove? and what if thats not even the issue?