1977 suburban

Have a 1977 suburban with full time 4 wheel drive with recently rebuilt trans, engine, and diffs. about $4,000 has been invested but it STILL has electrical problems that will drain the battery. 4 count them 4 shops have checked it out, one of them replaced the electric choke but the problem still exists. If you leave the battery connected for more than about 48 hours it will go below 10V. this is the 6th battery that has been in there in the past 2 years, the last 5 were free since they failed so soon.


What else other than the electric choke could fail on this old beast causing the battery to go dead. The radio is basic so it is not that since it does not even have a clock on it.

Any ideas????

Hi,
Please try this:
Charge the battery, disconnect it for 2 days and see, if it holds a charge.
Sometimes an alternator can kill batteries.

If that is OK, yank all fuses and check if it still gets drained.
Maybe you are lucky and can trace it to a fused device.
My 01 Yukon has a fuse box on each end of the dashboard in addition to the one under the hood.
I don't know, what the setup is on the 77.

Take care, Eggert :bananasmi

what power stuff do you have??? 1977 not to many but what do you have, alt sticking on and draining the system, ign switch not turning off, stuck door jam switch, the list is endless

well it is not a problem in the fuse box. This was found out by several shops. They claim it is electric choke, and "fixed it"....twice.

Would an alt keep killing batteries over and over?.

I am pretty sure this is the second alt with those batteries as well.

The interior lights do NOT stay on.

Nothing stays on that we can tell.

It takes just 48-72 hours to go from 13v to 11v.

Had the same type problem with my '97 burb. I thought the alternator was the problem because my voltmeter was reading around 11-11.5 so I replaced that without success. Finally replaced the wire and connectors from alt to + battery terminal and voila! problem solved. May be worth a try...
Chris