"geezer" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:25:06 -0700, "Pagan"
wrote:


That's strange. With the ignition disconnected, you certainly should be
getting zero volts. Sounds like there's a short either in the main cables
or in your starter.

I don't know the specific setup with your mower, but with automotive
engines, the positive leads of the battery are connected to both the
starter
and the ignition. The starter has a big, beefy wire going to it, while
the
ignition has the scrawny one. When you start your car, the ignition
switch
sends current to the solenoid on the starter, which allows current to go
through the beefy wire directly into the motor.

If your mower does the same, there could be a problem with your starter
and/or solenoid. On a real old motor, there could be years of dirt, dust,
grass, goop and crud jiggling around in there, which may explain the
different readings.

Really the only way to know for sure is to follow the battery cables
through
the mower, disconnecting wires and gadgets until you find what's sucking
the
life out of your battery. Instead of jumping to a likely culprit, it's
best
to follow the cables, starting from the disconnected battery terminal and
moving towards (electrically speaking) the terminal connected to the
battery.

Keep in mind that while it's rare to have more than one short in a case
like
this, it's not impossible. If you come across any significant voltage
drops, but still haven't reached zero, you might as well keep going, since
your already in there.

If you can't seem to find the problem, ask a friend or a shop to look into
it. I've found that I'll sometimes miss a problem, especially when it's
sitting right there in front of my face, while I'm off looking for
relatively exotic things. Then I get mad at myself, call myself names,
hurt
my feelings, and quit talking to myself until I'm forgiven, which takes
forever, since it feels sometimes I can read my mind.

If the warranty on the battery is still good, you might want to try
getting
it replaced. I'm pretty sure it's a goner. An overnight charging,
especially with your brutish charger, should easily yield a good 12 volts.
Most likely one of the cells in the battery got a kick of reversed charge
when your battery was close to drained, ruining that cell. The fact that
it's over 10 volts means the remaining 5 cells are well overcharged. A
good
trickle charger is looking even better right now. You'd get the same
results with an overnight charge, without the overcharging.

Pagan


Hi Pagan -

I finally am getting back to my problem what with the 4th and all.
I cut my grass this morning, so that I now have a week to explore my
problem before I need to cut again. Hopefully.

I have exposed the starter and the solenoid. Also most of the wiring.
I'll leave it thataway until I give up or find the problem. I might
look strange cutting the grass with the innards exposed, but so be it.
It will give the neighbors something to talk about.

There are two heavy red wires, one going from the battery + to the
solenoid and one from the solenoid to the starter. The wires look
fine - I don't see any wear.

The galling thing is - now when I place my meter between the battery +
and the red wire normally connected there and is now removed (and
which gave me voltage readings before that I interpreted as the amount
of the short), the meter reads 0V no matter what I do to jiggle things
etc, The implication is that right now I DO NOT have a short. This
is somewhat born out by the fact that the battery is now fully charged
(from cutting the grass this morning) to 12V whereas before the most I
ever got was about 10V. I remember saying I thought this meant I had
a dead cell,

The mower now sits completely connected up (sans the outside shell),
I intend to see if the battery stays at 12V,

Do you have any other suggestions as to what I might measure with my
meter as a further check?

Ain't this fun?

Thanks

Geezer - The old man aka the Bearded Wonder

Intermittents are the toughest problems to diagnose and correct. If your
battery holds its charge while in the current configuration ( shell parts
removed ) and the drain returns when you replace them, it implies one of
those now removed parts, when in place, is completing the high resistance
short that drains your battery.

I'd suggest you carefully examine those parts as you replace them to see if
they fit without touching anything in the electrical system (monitor the
path that is now correctly reading 0 volts drop while replacing the parts.
If it suddenly changes from 0 volts as you reinstall the shell parts, the
one you touched last when it changes is causing your problem. There may even
be evidence of the intermittent connection path on the inside of one of
those parts. Look closely.

joe