96 Accord - Good Alt. but battery keeps loosing charge
 

Car died a couple of weeks ago so i replaced teh battery since it was near 4 years old. Car worked great after that until now. Last couple of days it has been acting strange. Odometer and Speedometer kept droping to zero, windows didnt want to roll up, lights were dimmer. But it would stop after a minute and start working again.
Today car was running fine then it started to all happen again and this time the transmission didnt want to shift correctly so I pulled into autoparts store
and the car shut off. He jumped the battery and said that the volts were to low to test the alt. so I had to pull it and bench test it. Check out fine. Battery is brand new so that should not be the issue.


Any ideas?

You could have a key Off battery drain that is depleting battery when vehicle is not in use. You need to use a Volt-Ohm Meter (Multimeter) to measure current drain from the battery and isolate faulty circuit by pulling fuses sequentially and replacing if no change in drain. An acceptable drain is < 50mA. A drain of several amps will deplete battery.

Another possibility is a damaged crankshaft pulley/harmonic balancer. The rubber layer between outer pulley and inner hub can become worn/loose allowing pulley to slip and reduce alternator output. Suggest purchasing a Equus Innova Battery Monitor for about $15 and watch the voltage. It should be vary between 13.5-14.5 V. It will occasionally drop to about 12.5V when battery is fully charged (Honda feature to reduce fuel consumption).

A shop manual w/ circuit diagrams is essential. See DIY forum, Online Manuals post for a download manual.

good luck

just got my battery back and it tested bad...bought it 5 weeks ago so it should not be bad...takening it back to where I got it from


Replaced the timeing belt less than a year ago and the crankshaft pulley was in perfect condition so dont think that is it.

Ok...no im total thrown...Had Autozone check battery which is near my house and it tested bad and they said it would not take a charge. I then took it back to O-Riley's where I bought it and they charged it and it took a charge and tested OK.


After I replaced the timing belt last year the car had bad vibration afterwards. replaced broken front motor mount and it improved but didnt totally go away. Could that also be caused by a damaged crankshaft pulley/harmonic balancer

I have not heard of vibration due to a damaged harmonic balancer/crankshaft pulley.

Improper installation of balance shaft timing belt could lead to vibration (balance shafts improperly timed).

good luck

Thanks...going to run some voltage test on differant things and see why battery keeps loosing charge since the Alt. tested good.


I downloaded the wiring diagrams so should be fun. Will let you know.


Question, If the balance shafts improperly timed would it effect proformance?
I ask this because the car drives just as well as before the timing belt broke and was replaced. (also had to pull the head and have it reworked because two exhaust valves on the #1 got damaged)

Balance shaft mistiming would not affect performance.

See attached pdf's for help in checking the balance shaft alignment. Basically turn crankshaft to TDC, remove upper timing belt cover to observe forward balance shaft alignment marks, and attempt to insert 4"x6mm (1/4") bolt to confirm rear balance shaft alignment.

PDF's are same doc w/ different pics embedded. Best I have as original no longer on www, to my knowledge.

good luck