I've seen a few on here that are about your age. I just never knew you were that young. You're smack in the middle of my 2 older boys and neither are in to cars. The 20 year old is in college majoring in welding and the other will be 18 next week and is a senior in high school. He's enlisting in the Guards, attending college in the fall and has a goal of a military career. I wish they had been a mechanic, lawyer or dr. but oh well lol. I've still got one more boy that might go that route. Maybe messing with the meter was a sign lol

 

Don't put mechanic in that list, It is a tuff job that does not pay. Now if you own the garage you can make some money but other that there is a lot of better careers out there.

If your son start building is own bike from a pile of parts at age 8, at 12 he pushs home his first motorcycle and he buy his first car at 14 and it has to be brought to the house on a flat bed, then there will be no talking him out of becoming a mechainc. He won't regret it until he turns 23 and realize he has reached the top and every mechanic he looks up to is trying to figure out how to get a job making more money doing something else.

 

I dont necessarily mean for a career but it would be nice to have someone in the family who could do this kind of thing here at home. My dad is on disability now but he was a boat mechanic and he did a lot of stuff on our cars growing up. My grandpa on moms side was a Ford mechanic at the dealership but he only drove Chevy's lol. My husband grew up in a family that took the cars in for oil and wiper changes. Now he can change oil and he does some things on ours here at home but his trade is a lab tech working on wires lol.

 

It is always important in checking your tools, ie, multimeter, first before use.

The battery going dead could be a couple items, an uncharged battery, meaning, not charged up enough, too short od alternator run time. Another problem would be a load on the battery other than normal.

A quick check to monitor current draw, read power, is insert a test light between a battery post and the cable connected to it. It can be a Harbour Freight test light, $5, or any light bulb in a socket from the/a car, such as an 1156 bulb and its socket.

Normally, for a late model auto with an Power Control Module (PCM), Body Control Module (BCM), and radio, a current draw of around 50 milliamperes is normal. This mormal load should give a dim glow of the test light. This glow does not include aftermarket electronics, like an amp,cig lighter adapters for charging, yes, they have a little LED for ON light.

A bright glow indicates a major current draw and the test light will restrict the amount of current flowing by the design of the filament. Now you start disconnecting fuses one by one and compare brightness. After all fuses pulled and stil glowing brightly, you can disconnect the alternator red wire, may be a faulty one, but I doubt it.

Multimeter readings of current employs moving the red meter lead from the voltage jack to the amp jack, labeled with an 'A' and selecting the current range. Meters are fused inside by a ten amp fuse. You can replace the test light with the meter and monitor current draw. Depending on the scale chosen, you would see either 0.05 amps or 50 if milliamp scale is chosen.

I have follwed along and read the speaker was hooked up to to battery. I'm sure this miswire has been rectified and moving on to other areas.

 

The speaker was never hooked to battery. I just ran new speaker wire from the speaker directly to head unit.

 

Since the radio itself is the power souce for the speakers and the radio should not be turned on when the car is off. There is nothing the speaker wires themselfs can be doing. Most likely you disturb something or pinched a different wire in the process of rewiring your speakers. Could be anywhere but most like under the dash.

That assumes its not just a problem with the battery.

 

Battery was dead first time from leaving the lights on inside the car. I know that caused the first time but did that alone keep it from holding over 12v? It was 11.79 24 hrs later. I will take it to advance. Its pouring rain here and since we have 4 cars, I don't drive that one in rain.

 

You're welcome.

 

Maybe it's a bad meter. Anyway, it held 11.79 for 2 days with no cranking or charging and cranked up easy. According to dr google, that's a dead battery. So my car cranks with dead battery lol.. on to next topic lol

 

True, dead battery. Next time you start it, let us know the charging voltage across the battery posts.

Right after start-up, voltage will be the highest, generally, 14.5 volts.
As the battery warms up, it takes less voltage to charge, voltage drops off, min 13.8 volts.