Dead Short

[kkynaston]

After poking around with my multimeter I think I have a dead short somewhere.
History:
The car had been fine until wednesday night when I came to start it but everything was dead, the battery showed 2 volts on the multimeter.

Charged it up and started the car,then strange things started happening, the volt meter in the dash was showing 15 - 16 volts and the alternator light was on. I checked all the fuses and they were fine. After a few minutes everything returned to normal.

So off I went for a drive (3 miles ish) no problems, car started again when i stopped it at home. 2 hours later I went to pick up the missus and again it started fine, stopped and picked up the missus and off we went again. Got home no problems.

Went out an hour later and after a couple of miles the radio went off and on, then the speedo died and came back intermittently until eventually everything was dead and the car stopped. Had to drive home with the boost pack connected under the bonnet.

I measured the resistance between the 2 battery terminals with the battery disconnected and I am getting about 8 ohms.

Even if I measure behind the radio between the switched live and earth I get about 8 ohms even with the ignition off
I have checked all the leads around the battery.
When the battery was fully charged again I connected the car back up with the multimeter across it and the voltage was dropping slowly back down to 2 volts with the engine off.

Has anyone ever had this before and where do I start to look?

[rich30mex]

total pain to get to the allternater on a v6 hope its not that (sounds like it is thow)

[Stupink]

yeah odds are alternator..

put in new fully charged battery, DONT RUN CAR, go out 30mins later and carefully put hand on alternator, im guessing on v6 you can still feel it even if you can't remove it easy.... if its hot or warm then its duff.

[Stupink]

shouldnt be too much of a problem to jack it up and support it and hten feel throught the arch with it on full lock??? i should probably have a look at a v6 someday lol. i dont think i've ever looked under the bonnet of one lol.

[v6 steve]

shouldnt be too much of a problem to jack it up and support it and hten feel throught the arch with it on full lock??? i should probably have a look at a v6 someday lol. i dont think i've ever looked under the bonnet of one lol.

any time you want too mate give me a call and you can have a look at mine as long as you work some of your magic when your at it

[kkynaston]

Thanks for the replies guys
After disconnecting the alternator the short disappeared so I figured I would have a go at removing it and taking it for repair.
After about an hour of sitting and looking at the task before me, I charged the battery up fully and drove it to my mate last night who is a mechanic.

I got to pass him spanners while he shouted Obscenities
In the end we had removed the drivers side wheel and an engine mounting bolt to get the dam n thing out. Took about 2 and a half hours

So its off to CPC today to get it repaired. We didn't fancy getting one from the scrappy and finding it not working after putting it all back.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for the welcome btw, great forum and looking forward to being a long time Calibra owner

[vinny_69]

removed the drivers side wheel and an engine mounting bolt

never had to do that before

[kkynaston]

Well we couldn't get the oil light switch off (for fear of knackering it) as that would have probably given us clearance to get it out, so taking the engine mounting out seemed like the best idea.

Gonna call up CPC now and see if they have done the job

[v6 steve]

2 and 1/2 hours thats about right its a pain in the of a job might sound obvious but remeber to dissconnet the battery you dont want to F*** the new one as it is a night mare if you have to do it again next week.

[MarkV6]

yeah odds are alternator..

if its hot or warm then its duff.

That'll be the diode regulator pack. One of it's jobs is to only allow the electrical current to go one way.

When it's 'duff' (technical term ) the alternator effectively becomes a motor, trying to turn over, drawing current from the battery.

Had an old M reg Cavalier TD (isuzu engined one) that went through three before I got rid of it.

[kkynaston]

Well the jobs done

Got an exchange QH for £50 from a chap in Burntwood with 12 months warranty, and we put it in last night in the pouring rain

So in total the job took 4 and a half hours not something I want to do again.

Car is back on the road, now to get on with the rocker cover gaskets and clean the engine bay

[v6 steve]

good news mate hope thats an end of your troubles