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motor stops when lights are turned on

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motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby Big Bank » Sat Feb 24, 2018 3:26 pm

Hello,
My clock was no longer adjustable using the contact buttons. I was told by a Ford employee in Duesseldorf Germany that I could simply disconnect the battery at midnight and it would go to zero. I did this at midday and the result:
A few lights went on and off but then I was able to start the engine OK.
When parking and leaving the car I noticed that the 4 orange warning lights did not come on but all doors locked ok (using the key button of the keyring). Later I started the engine fine, then on turning on the headlights the engine went out. I turned the lights switch off and tried 4 times with the same result. I found that just the sidelights alone were ok and so had to drive home with only sidelights.
I thought that the battery (measured 11.6V) was getting weak with the cold weather. Hence rigged up another battery (12.5V) in parallel
but on turning on the main lights, the engine stopped. With the engine running I pulled the lever to flash lights and the engine stopped also.
Hence the problem lies where?
Perhaps someone has a suggestion. It is getting dark soon!

Thanks

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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby Frag » Sat Feb 24, 2018 3:36 pm

Sounds like the alternator isn't charging.....
Have you measured voltage at battery when it's running ?
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby andz327 » Sat Feb 24, 2018 9:37 pm

+1 with alternator faulty , when lights go on they're sucking power from engine side of things by the sound of it mate
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby Big Bank » Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:11 pm

Frag wrote:Sounds like the alternator isn't charging.....
Have you measured voltage at battery when it's running ?

Not yet done that - waiting for the cold spell to leave.
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby Big Bank » Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:13 pm

andz327 wrote:+1 with alternator faulty , when lights go on they're sucking power from engine side of things by the sound of it mate

So from what you say I need to check if the alternator is dead. Not sure how to do that.
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby knobby1 » Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:49 pm

Big Bank wrote:
andz327 wrote:+1 with alternator faulty , when lights go on they're sucking power from engine side of things by the sound of it mate

So from what you say I need to check if the alternator is dead. Not sure how to do that.


How many volts across battery with engine running..?? Should be ~14.4v -ish..

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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby Big Bank » Sat Mar 03, 2018 6:15 am

knobby1 wrote:
Big Bank wrote:
andz327 wrote:+1 with alternator faulty , when lights go on they're sucking power from engine side of things by the sound of it mate

So from what you say I need to check if the alternator is dead. Not sure how to do that.


How many volts across battery with engine running..?? Should be ~14.4v -ish..

Lord Knobrot

Battery was 4V after the cold....a night of charging brought it to 12.5V and with motor running 14.5V
Now I hope it will not lose the charge or another 65Ah battery may be necessary.
Thanks Lord Knobrot for your advice!
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby Altransit » Sat Mar 03, 2018 11:30 am

If the battery voltage has dropped to 4v, I would say that it's had it :( Starter batteries don't like to be deep discharged and seldom recover in my experience :|
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby andz327 » Sat Mar 03, 2018 12:45 pm

Altransit wrote:If the battery voltage has dropped to 4v, I would say that it's had it :( Starter batteries don't like to be deep discharged and seldom recover in my experience :|
+1 as above, freezing cold weather will show up any battery thats not 100%, a good powerful battery makes a big difference and peace of mind
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Last edited by andz327 on Sat Mar 03, 2018 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby bambi mk 1 » Sat Mar 03, 2018 12:55 pm

andz327 wrote:
Altransit wrote:If the battery voltage has dropped to 4v, I would say that it's had it :( Starter batteries don't like to be deep discharged and seldom recover in my experience :|
+1 as above, freezing cold weather will show up any battery thats not 100%, a good powerful battery makes a big difference and peace of mindImage

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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby andz327 » Sat Mar 03, 2018 1:03 pm

bambi mk 1 wrote:
andz327 wrote:
Altransit wrote:If the battery voltage has dropped to 4v, I would say that it's had it :( Starter batteries don't like to be deep discharged and seldom recover in my experience :|
+1 as above, freezing cold weather will show up any battery thats not 100%, a good powerful battery makes a big difference and peace of mind
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby Big Bank » Sun Mar 04, 2018 5:43 pm

Altransit wrote:If the battery voltage has dropped to 4v, I would say that it's had it :( Starter batteries don't like to be deep discharged and seldom recover in my experience :|

Well that may be true, but after 8 hours of charging the battery recovered to 12.5V and I was able to start the car three times and go shopping. Trying to leave it on a slope so that I could jump start if necessary.
The next day the voltage was found to have dropped to 12V so I found a reserve battery which had been lying for 8 months but still had a voltage of 12.5V. I connected the two in parallel with thick cables and the car started without a problem, but again on switching on the lights the motor stopped. That gives me the impression that although the original battery may be in poor health the source of the problem lies elsewhere. I have no charger here to be able to boost the second battery, but if I exchange the batteries and then go for a 40 minute drive would that be enough to know that the second battery is now in a standard charge state?
Any other suggestions are of course gladly received.
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby grogan197 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:10 pm

Bit of an odd problem that. Does the engine cut out straight away when the lights go on?

Would be a good idea to monitor the voltage whilst driving to see if there is much drop when the lights go on. If the voltage doesn't change much then i'd be thinking there are some crossed connections somewhere causing the ECU to think there's a fault and stop the engine.

Do you have ForScan? You could monitor battery voltage and rpm on that to see if there seems to be a link. It will also show any codes, if it is the ECU stopping the engine it would normally log a DTC you could then read.
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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby Big Bank » Mon Mar 05, 2018 11:57 am

grogan197 wrote:Bit of an odd problem that. Does the engine cut out straight away when the lights go on?

Yes, switching the main lights on turns off the engine!


Would be a good idea to monitor the voltage whilst driving to see if there is much drop when the lights go on. If the voltage doesn't change much then i'd be thinking there are some crossed connections somewhere causing the ECU to think there's a fault and stop the engine.

Do you have ForScan?

Never heard of that.

Perhaps a local garage is the best place...

You could monitor battery voltage and rpm on that to see if there seems to be a link. It will also show any codes, if it is the ECU stopping the engine it would normally log a DTC you could then read.


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Re: motor stops when lights are turned on

Postby knobby1 » Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:32 pm

Big Bank wrote:Trying to leave it on a slope so that I could jump start if necessary.


This is not a good idea....timing chain can jump teeth from the sudden hit on the cam chain with no oil pressure...common problem.

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