av8rkirk

In the last few months I began to have some issues with my electrical system. The first thing that started to happen was my instrument cluster becam intermittent. The gages would not come alive until the truck had run for awhile. This is annoying but no big deal. Shortly after that problem had begun I started to notice that when I turned the ignition off and removed the key that the high beam indicator light would come on by itself even though the high beams were off. Sometimes by simply opening and closing the driver side door it would go off, other times it would not.

One morning I went to start the truck and it was dead. I pulled the battery which was only a few months old and checked it. It was reading only 11 volts. I also checked my charging system and it was putting out a steady 14 volts. Took the battery to Autozone and they said yep, bad battery. They gave me a warranty replacement and all was well. About 9 weeks later same thing, had to jump start the truck. Put another battery in and about 7 weeks later same deal, battery showed only 11 volts and got another warranty replacement. Charging system still checked out fine. Well guess what yesterday same thing had to jump again. Charging system still looks good. I still have the intermittent gage problem and the high beam light was on when I went to start the truck for work. As soon as I finally jumped the truck and it started the light went out.

Does anyone have any ideas? Could something be draining the battery while the truck is off and parked? I have not added any accessories to the truck. The only thing I have ever done non-factory is upload the superchips Mod. The vehicle is a 2001 S-10 Extreme 4.3 vortec.

golfer

There definitely sounds like a drain on the battery when the vehicle is off.

This is referred to as " parasitic drain " , all modern vehicles will normally have a small amount of parasitic drain for the various electronic control modules and constant memory for things like stereos, etc.

The test for this :

With a Multimeter set to DC amps , without the key in the ignition, doors closed and everything OFF

1 - disconnect the Negative battery cable
2 - attach one lead from the meter to this negative cable
3 - attach the other meter lead to the negative battery point

wait a few minutes for the reading to settle ( this is for everything to re-initialize ) and observe the reading, which should be somewhere in the ball park of .010 (milliamp) to .020 (milliamp). [ 1 amp = 1000 milliamp and 1/2 amp = .500 amp or 500 milliamp ]
This will depend on what accessories your vehicle has.

If you find a high reading , for example .500 amps ( 500 milliamp ), you can do one of two things to locate which circuit is responsible for the high draw.

#1

- leave everything connected as mentioned above
- remove one fuse at a time and see if the reading drops significantly

just remember to shut the door or disable the interior lights so they aren't on.

#2
- reconnect the battery cable
- pull one fuse at a time
- place one lead of the meter on one terminal of the fuse socket
- place the other lead of the meter to the other terminal of the fuse socket
- observe and record the reading

This will direct you to which circuit has a problem.

NCHEVYHEVN

Yep do what the guy above says except remove the negative battery cable and wait 30-40 minutes so that all the modules on the truck will go into "sleep" mode because when they are awake they pull alot more current.

If I had to guess it's going to be the BCM or maybe even the ICP for both the parasitc drain and the reason the gauge lights don't work all the time.

If you are tight on cash search for S10warehouse on ebay motors as he will probly have everything you need as he specializes in 98+ s-series.