Balogne Cajones
The junkyard project has been a success thus far. Besides the power steering pulley loose and causing a interpreted knock for the dme, cars been perfect. Lol. And then these other nifty problems. Ha.
Once a week it seems the car cranks FOREVER until it fires up right before tje battery dies. I usually try cranking a few times so i dont kill the starter. This undoubtedly draines the battery. And as i live maybe 10 minutes from work, has left me with a dead battery a couple times. This is 1 issue i was hoping anyone had experience on. Obd1 Silver label ews11 active. There are none fuel issues or problems as fuel pressure is perfect, fuel pump has no problems on long drives or when fuel level is low. Brand new crank sensor. No cel.
Also, i noticed in the dark morning hours. If the lights are on, (all work great minus a liscence plate light thats out) and i press the brake pedal, the cluster lights dim ever so slightly.
The battery is good, large size, and holds charge by itself. Altinator is 140 amp, puts out 13.8v at idle and is good.
Nobody would recertify these machines after somebody screwed with them without any visibility into what they did.
HONK! HONK! Clown car coming through!
-Oakdizzle
Member
Look at the wiring between the trunk lid and the body. Due to the twist and bending this loom gets opening and closing the trunk the conductor sheathing fails and the wires short.
BMW make a repair loom for this.
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Cam sensor.
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Balogne Cajones
The trunk loom is 100% good. 1. Because the only wires i have in the loom are for the liscence plate lights, and 2, I installed it myself a few months ago.
Cam sensor.. Really? Cam sensor does nothing for starting on obd1...
Member
don't know about the starting up issue.
But about the dash light slightly dimming, i assume that's with the engine off and ignition on ? the one time i experienced that behaviour was with a battery that was completely empty multiple times in very low temperatures. you could charge it but it was damaged and wasn't properly working anymore. So when i pressed the brake pedal, the additional load of the brake lights was enough to drop the battery voltage by an amount that made the dash lights dim a bit. You can rule that out by putting in a known good battery from another vehicle for a test.
Balogne Cajones
I swapped batteries, same results. Also, it was with the car running.. I either have a short, which is straining/draining the battery, orthe altinator is pushing proper volts (confirmed)and not proper amperage to supply power demand.
I swapped batteries with wifes e46. The e46 is doing just fine. The known good battery now in my e36 has died after 4 days, 8 starts. The car runs fine with said dead battery from jump start, as if the altinator is fine tho. So im leaning at short.
Member
are all your bulbs correct ? On some cars you can insert bulbs the wrong way, or insert totally wrong bulbs in the wrong spots which causes shorts, and in one case a vehicle instantly turned off when pushing the brake pedal. turned out there was a wrong brake light bulb inserted. I'm no electrical guru, please don't ask me why that happens, but after installing the correct bulb all was fine.
Last edited by samy01; 01-17-2020 at 07:13 PM.
Member
You ever get this resolved?
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Balogne Cajones
I found a constant drain/short of .01 amp going through my AC fuse. (No drain anywhere else) Thats what has been draining my battery. I just have to trace it and repair it and see if it resolves the issue. Also, my passenger seat fuse blown as well. Might also be the culprit if on the power side.
Balogne Cajones
Went through the diagramsbfor fuse 31. It powers the obc, the climate control, and the cluster. I unplugged the climate and the obc and still had the same power drain. So, its the cluster, and probably most likely related to the lights obviously.
Which might be related tomy past problem of the bad ground wire connection in the spade conmector under the driver seat. That symptom was left side markers not working, and blowing that fuse. So... Im assuming the short is from the left side light somewhere to the cluster. Or the cluster is on its way out. Tracing it now.
Balogne Cajones
Idioticly Blew the fuse in my meter before i could unplug the cluster. Guess i wont be able to trace the short until i have time next weekend.
Member
10mA drain total is very little and shouldn't kill the battery.
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Balogne Cajones
Well you must be right. My battery doesnt die and its all in my imagination. Lmfao. The batteries are all good (all 5 of them i have tested with a proper battery checker) and work perfectly in wifes e46 for months and weeks, holds charge. The altinator in the e36 puts out proper voltage and runs the car with and without the battery. So with alittle bit of logic here. (Just a smidgen). It very well could be much larger of a drain or short when the car is running or with the lights on. Obviously I cant test that high of a current with a basic meter, nor would i think they make such an accurate device. One would think that the cluster, thats only on when the car is on.... (Follow me here) shouldnt be draining anything with the car off.
Theres no other explanation that I can think of. You have any ideas?
Member
Well obviously track down and shorts you think are present with what you've observed so far.
I noticed you said you alternator puts out 13.8v, so I'm assuming it's an older 140A unit, because all newer ones put out 14.4V. But another issue that is possible is that the alt has a lot of diodes in them and all it takes is one of them to be bad and that will cause trouble like this. So if your out of ideas, swap in a known good alt, the car doesn't need 140A either, so a good 80A would be fine. Also even though the alt can put out 140A doesn't mean it will charge the battery faster, the potential difference in voltage is what makes it take on charge, so if your not far from work the charging of a 14.4V system may make the difference.
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Balogne Cajones
The altinator is maybe a few years old. Its demanded on convertibles with all the power stuff. So it obviously got tranfered to this car with the everything swap.
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But yes. 140amp.
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After messing with the obc, climate control amd cluster, my obc lights do not work.
This was a problem before hand maybe a month ago. Then suddenly they started working.. Well what the shit.. Im just going to pull the dash and air box this weekend. Then i can pullthe harness back to the driver footwell to aleviate the tight harness.. And il go through whatever short exists that i find before hand.
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