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Those are good suggestions, thanks. I checked again this morning and the voltage is down to 11.98, so it's definitely dropping. I thought it read close to the baseline 12.6 the other day, but maybe it was lower 12's and I didn't pay close enough attention.
I pulled the trunk and glove box bulbs, to eliminate the stuff that's hard to see whether it's shutting off, then hooked up a neg. terminal disconnect. It's back on the charger now, then it'll be onto pulling fuses, turning things on and off, inspecting wiring, etc. Nothing appears out of order upon initial inspection.
The good news is, it's almost certainly the battery. The bad news is, I have to convince NAPA of that (or just buy a new one when this one has 70% of its warranty remaining), with their analyzer saying it's healthy. At least I can hold off on doing any deep wiring digging.
Fully charged and disconnected, the battery dropped close to 0.2V in a day. That's not enough to be alarming like the 9.9V it twice dropped to, but the rate of drop may not be linear. I'll check it again after two days before bringing it in.
More importantly, checking for parasitic drain, there's only 10 mA power draw across the disconnected negative cable, well below the 50-100 mA threshold for concern. I suppose it's still possible there's a sporadic draw, but that sounds pretty unlikely in conjunction with a battery losing juice on its own.
I was chasing down some electrical gremlins a few weeks ago (door locks cycling, alarm not chirping via remote press, dome light not staying on until key inserted in ignition, and eventually battery went dead) and had the driver's door panel off to look for a presumed ground wire break through the door grommet (tested fine). I figured I might as well take another stab at figuring out why the window's been slow going down, having tried lubing everything previously.
I almost buttoned it up having not found anything, then on a whim felt around for anything suspicious. Something didn't seem right on the back of the regulator track...
That certainly explains it! Good thing I had a spare, although its motor seems a little weak. I had a nice low-mileage passenger regulator set aside, but I don't seem to have had the corresponding driver's one.
had the driver's door panel off to look for a presumed ground wire break through the door grommet (tested fine).
Did you ever find the bad ground? I have been looking for one in my white car for a while, finally just grounded with a new ground wire. Just curious where the short is.
Did you ever find the bad ground? I have been looking for one in my white car for a while, finally just grounded with a new ground wire. Just curious where the short is.
Negative. Everything tested out okay. I had continuity on the thick ground wire from the kick panel (bottom connector, toward the front of the car) to the lock/window switch and to the lock regulator, so it doesn't seem like there was actually a break anywhere. I'm not great with electrical work and didn't have any great thoughts on what to look for next.
I had to charge the battery half a dozen times to get it into a good voltage range. I was still getting a few alarm/light glitches after that, but much less frequent. They haven't occurred at all the last few days. I think there's still something going on there, as symptoms should be on/off after changes, not slowly improving... Seems like the NAPA batteries have random hiccups in winter weather every couple years? Whether that's the cause or the effect, is a lingering question, though.
I'm thinking it's worth doing a Big 3 upgrade and getting good grounds in place wherever possible. Even if that doesn't squash this particular problem, it's surely worthwhile overall. If I do have a sporadic ground issue, perhaps something temperature specific (which could explain the symptoms gradually improving as we head into Spring), improving the grounds elsewhere might bypass it.
Must be a common ground issue for the two windows, rather than the usual cracking of the wire(s) through the door grommet flex points.
I know from when I wired up a central window/lock unit on the tranny tunnel for the stripped '95 MT, the two door control units are tied together. As I recall, the signal goes from the passenger unit over to the driver's and then back out to what it's controlling. Seems overly complicated, but it makes sense from the standpoint of the driver's side controlling both, and the passenger side being controlled by either. So, your issue could be anything in the path between the two, I suppose.
Due to time constraints I just spliced into the ground coming from the drivers window controller and grounded straight to the door then ran a short ground jumper from the door to the body to get things working. I figure my issue is in the drivers door loom between the door and body but just no time to go back and look for it.
I put on my Supra TT summer wheels/tires last week, and decided to try out the '95-96 SC300 center caps I found a while back. I hadn't scuffed and painted them yet, since a couple of them were partially cracked ... very thin plastic on that style, much like the TT caps (I think I only got two of them with the wheels, and one was barely holding on). Here's a picture, in case people want to see what SC caps on TT wheels look like:
Can't say I'm crazy about it, but then, I never liked the TT wheel look prior to getting mine because of how bubbly they look with the center caps. Especially when polished. I've run them with no caps up till now, which looks a lot sportier, but somewhat incomplete even painted black. I'd love to get the JDM TT caps with recessed lug pattern, but spending $250 on them seems a bit too frivolous.
I do have two of another style SC cap, probably also from a '95-96 SC300 but I don't remember where I got them, that's much more solid feeling and has a bigger Lexus emblem:
If I can find two more of those, I'll probably switch out the shiny set. The size of the emblem feels more appropriate to the diameter of the center cap.
I've also got a list -- can't remember if I found it on here or compiled it myself -- of other center caps the same size, in hopes of finding some to check the fit: '92-95 Pontiac Bonneville, '97-00 Buick Park Avenue & '02 Lesabre, '95-99 Buick Riviera, '92-94 and '08-09 Ford Taurus.
02-14-20, 10:06 AM
