Battery wont hold charge in the 'Retta

[Styluss]

So yeah. I bought a Beretta to flip for some cash recently and I bought a piece! Today's issue is that the battery will not hold a charge. I have not had the alternator looked at yet. I replaced the old one with a "new", good loooking one from the yard.
The car will start and run fine, but if it is left off with the battery connected, it will not start later on. Does anyone know of common battery drains in these old cars? I'm digging into the batteries today (I have 2, making sure one is good and fully charged). Once that is done, if the problem persists, I will have the alternator checked.

[Mr. Beefy]

I know when I had that problem with my GT it was the turn signal switch. Are all the blinkers/brake lights working properly? Could be a bad battery.

[Rex 2.0]

I would make sure to try a battery that you know is good and fully charged before you start looking for other problems.  An easy way to test the alternator is to start the car and then disconnect the battery. If the car turns off bad alternator.  Or you can take it off and bring it to autozone for a free test.

[pimpz26]

Try unhooking the battery for the night.  Then you will know if it's something in the car, or just a bad battery (like me)

[2tone88]

DO NOT UNHOOK THE BATTERY WITH THE CAR RUNNING.
   In an older car you can (79or earlier) in a car with a computer you risk voltage spiking the computer.

[Money pit Beretta]

The starter solenoid can sometimes not go all the way back after a start. The solenoid will keep drawing power. Just something to try if everything else checks out.

[Rodville]

(2tone88 @ Apr. 04 2008,13:35)QUOTEDO NOT UNHOOK THE BATTERY WITH THE CAR RUNNING.
   In an older car you can (79or earlier) in a car with a computer you risk voltage spiking the computer.
Been there done that $750.00 later I learned my lesson. This was back when the cars were new of course.

[Styluss]

I had the battery tested and it is good. Hell, it was new when I put it in this car!
The turn signals seem to be okay, but the bulbs are missing from the front sidemarkers so I need to replace those.
The damn owner beofre me wired up so much of his own crap I had to disconnect most all of it to see if that was the issue. I will be looking into a bit more today!

[SuzukiGhostRider]

(2tone88 @ Apr. 04 2008,11:35)QUOTEDO NOT UNHOOK THE BATTERY WITH THE CAR RUNNING.
   In an older car you can (79or earlier) in a car with a computer you risk voltage spiking the computer.
While this CAN happen, do you know what the odds are against it? It's just like when you're told to only jump a car with yours off. One in a million chance of happening. BUT .... you can air on the side of extreme paranoia and caution and just have Autozone or someone test your alt/batt to see if they're any good. GL. Sounds like the guy before you wired something up you can't find that's drawing power and killing the battery overnight.

[2tone88]

QUOTE      Been there done that $750.00 later I learned my lesson.          

Odds look pretty good it'll happen.

 I've been in parts for 12yrs, at least once a month I or a coworker get a call for a computer thats been fried. Personally I'd try to avoid a $150.00 hit to my wallet if I could. Besides why take a chance when almost all the DIY parts stores do theses tests for free?

[Rex 2.0]

I never knew it could do that. I have done it several times on different cars and never had a problem.

[Money pit Beretta]

Did you get it fixed?

[steve3408]

Hey Styluss,try this.Pull all of the fuses from the car,make sure you've got a good charged battery of course and remove the ground battery terminal,one at a time put the fuses in and touch the terminal to the battery to see if theres a spark,the first time is normal since it will send power to like the clock or whatever,but after that,theres should be no spark(power being pulled out) Do one fuse at a time until you locate the circuit with the short in it.Then start looking for a problem in that circuit.Chevy used to be bad about the dome lights shortin' out on older cars. Good Luck with it.

[martino]

hey am having the same problem and ive done every thing i could think of..By getting a new battery, Alternator, and checking all fuses and grounds and going through the wires i could get to and seeing if their was a brake in them but nothing just duck tape but i fixed that but the can will not stay on and charge the battery..but i havent checked the wires that are on the starter coming from the alternator cuz i cant get the car up high enough in the drive way....but let me know if anyone has any ideas of if u get close ( Styluss Customs )..

[wicked-irocz]

first of all buy a multimeter.  Pull the battery cable off.  take all the fuses out as said above and connect the multimeter set to amps (make sure there is a fuse wired before the multimeter that is less than the max amperage the meter can take) in line with the battery (one multimeter wire to battery, one to the factory battery cable.  Replace fuses one at a time until you get a constant amp draw.  If it draws for a few seconds then stops its fine but if it continues to draw its a problem.  If there is less than .5 amp draw with all fuses in it is generally considered ok because all the electronic devices in the car draw power continuously.