Its a 89 nissan. It has a new battery. Alternator was replace recently. What should I check for? I'm thinking
if there's an alt. fuse.........
drivebelt
alt. connectors/connections
alt. mounting bolts (that's what it say in the haynes)

The car jump starts then dies 15 min. later. how exactly do you check if someone thing (component) is draining/short the system. though wouldn't that only be a problem with if everytime I go to start the car in the morning I would have to jump it?? I was thinking, if all else fails, trace all the wires back to the ecu or whereever they go. check for continuity. is there a way to check for a short in a single wire??

 

what kinda 89 nissan LOL

 

It's like a sentra or something. It's a small car w/ carb.

Well, the new battery that was put in turned out to be bad. Replaced that and it doesn't die while driving any more, but it dies when you leave it for the night, unless the neg. terminal is removed. How do you check what's causing it to drain power at night. In the haynes it says to put a test light between the neg. battery post and the neg. cable connector, that's removed from the battery. start removing fuses until the test light goes out??

Also, all of a sudden when all this happened the lights and the stero stopped working.

 

so i did some research and it's probably a parasitic drain. so if I pull a fuse and the test light goes out, theres a short ie a wire is touch metal. unless it something dumb like the trunk light or something??

 

if you have a multimeter handy, you can set it to read dc amps and connect the meter in series with a groud and the negative termail, you will be able to measure the draw you being put on the battery, only do this with the vehicle off! but your best bet is to start with the simple stuff, and then if you can't locate the draw, like you said, start pulling fuses, until you come up with an answer.

 

I've read two ways of doing it. One with a test light and one with checking the amperage.......
Just for the hell of it I tried it on my car and a test light lit up. I turn everything off; stero, rear defroster, dash lights, etc. didn't check dome light now that I think about it. but wouldn't all car at least have something on?

 

no ones had a problem w/ this?

To check, I put a test light on another car to see what happens and the test light came on. Does that backup fuse have to be removed. I guess a amp meter is what you want to be reading, but if I was to just start removing all the fuses and see what is causing it draw power anyway. even though not w/ the amp meter to just get the light off.