OT dodge charging problem

Ron in Can · Mar 17, 2015

I have a 04 dodge ram 3500 with the 5.9 diesel and it does this some times not all the time after it starts the voltage takes a couple of minutes to climb back up to just over 14 on the gage now sometimes it doesn't I will stay on the low side of the good range then after a few minutes of running the gage will drop to 8 volts ( lowest ) then if you keep running the truck the pass side battery will " boil" the gage never comes up off of 8 volts and the truck will run until it dies from lack of power but pass battery is boiling from over powered but if you remove the neg cable from pass batt the gage reads right and the truck will run all day and if you hook booster cables up from battery to battery every thing seems normal but you can hear and see a nasty big snap of power as you hook up booster cables never drove truck will this set up to see how long it would go as afraid cables might short out on hood or fall down on turbo and cause more problems any ideas on what is wrong and or where to look to fix this I have put 4 batterys in truck since Oct 180 a pop it is getting expensive help

806 Curt · Mar 17, 2015

Somewhere you must have a bad connection between batteries or ground. Sounds unusual though. If you have a multimeter you can do voltage dropped tests between battery positive side and ground sides. That should show you where voltage is being dropped. Evidently somehow the alternator's load sense is sensing system voltage which is low and is trying to compensate by charging at full amperage only to passenger side battery.

Ron in Can · Mar 17, 2015

yes a garage I had it at said the computer holds the regulater and it senses voltage from driver side batt but the alt sends power to pass side battery but what puzzles me is if you take off neg cable from pass batt every thing seems all right

jstpa · Mar 17, 2015

It sounds like the left hand battery has lost its connection to the rest of the vehicle. Could be either a ground or a hot. your jumper cables are telling you what the problem is now you just have to determine if its the positve cable or the ground off of that battery. hth, jstpa

806 Curt · Mar 17, 2015

When you remove the passenger side negative does it charge the driver side battery normally then? There is a small piece to the puzzle we are missing and I'm not sure what questions to ask you to figure it out. Perhaps others can chime in?

806 Curt · Mar 17, 2015

Here's what I would like you to try if you have a multimeter. Hook the batteries to the truck normally and start the truck. Next set your multimeter for voltage. Put one lead to one battery positive and put the other lead to the other battery positive. If your meter is showing more than 0.5 volts I would say you have a bad connection between the positives of the two batteries. If it shows less than 0.5 volts your positive side is ok. Next check the negative side. Put one lead from passenger side battery negative and the other lead to a good grounded area of the engine block or head. Once again should show 0.5 volts or less. Any more and you have a bad connection between that battery and ground. Do the same test for the other battery.

Ron in Can · Mar 17, 2015

it appears too the truck will run all day and not boil the pass battery as it is unhooked the gage reads normal I just don't shut it off until I have to as in home and done

Janicholson · Mar 18, 2015

Another [possibility is a shorted battery (internal issue). If so it will act like that, boiling one battery (the bad one) Jim

Ron in Can · Mar 18, 2015

i thought of that but it only happens to pass side batt and all 4 have been replaced since Oct

Rumplestiltskin · Mar 19, 2015

If the batteries are interchangeable, I'd swap their locations and see if the problem moves or stays put.

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OT dodge charging problem

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