charging woes part IV 'The Wrath of Tim'

[tim eh?]

#$%@


I'm just about ready to torch this car.

Thanks to you who have made it this far, I feel like I have an army of help.

main symptoms: (part III covers the details if you have the time)
battery loses some charge (+/- 0.5V) overnight
I don't get enough charge with all the electricals (lights,heat,defrost) running and the system drops below 12.0V measured across terminals.

-battery is nearly new, has passed a load test (not sure what ca), and doesn't seem to lose charge by itself. (see below)
-alternator is third rebuilt in a row from a good parts store and all 3 have given the exact same results.

I am assuming the two problems are related. Upcoming third problem of winter.

Suspects I just ruled out:
It's not the foglight fix, at least not the foglight circuit which I suspected. I pulled the fuse and get the same poor charge.
Same with the rear defrost, I thought maybe something got bumped during a rear shock mount install. Pulled that fuse, same drop in charge.
I haven't looked behind the C pillars yet though.


What I'm focusing on now:

The Instrument Cluster
It is the early grey-back design so it could be whacky. The fuel guage is nutty and it has done the odd weird thing now and then like a full reset on the RPM guage while idling. I happen to have another one I'll swap in. (then I can maybe sell the car with only 200,000km on the odo... heh...) I wonder where there are other capacitors and such I can examine... maybe the stereo amp in the trunk?

The Battery

Maybe still a short in it?

Monday 10pm.... 12.60V.... dammit....


Maybe this alarm system?

we go way back... you've seen this pic already, and this one and this pic where you can just see the fix on the left. (i admit i used i slightly higher guage wire there i think... pretty sure the fix is good tho) That's the only place where any of that 5lb. pile of wire was spliced.

Where else can I check that you might wire an alarm?

Weird thing, just happened, maybe related... I mentioned already the running lights flicker ever so slightly when I reconnect the cable at the neg battery terminal. Well today when I first reconnected the battery the factory horn went off... first time this has ever happened on just connecting the battery. I say factory b/c there are aftermarket horns installed... the factory horn only goes off when the factory alarm (code on obc) is tripped... if I use the steering wheel pads I get some kind of pissy euro horn pair that hangs around the power steering reservoir.

Anyway, I'd rate this BS alarm as suspect #1 at the moment ... wtf?
Two alarms on this bitch? wonder what they were haulin'?


As I'm sure you can imagine any ideas, no matter how whacky, will be gratefully received, but I'd say it looks like I've had the same problem for a while now.
I am going to get some beer.