battery not charging

[cranknandcrankn]

I posted a few days back about some problems with my oil pressure. Im sure this is a different issue, but is it common for these problems to happen at the same time?

1999 ram 1500 5.2L 318

My truck battery is dead, not enough juice to even turn the starter. I can jumpstart the truck and it will turn over fine and run for as long as i need it to. the moment i turn off the ignition and turn it back over, the battery is dead again. Here is why im confused....If the alternator was bad, then im running off the battery, so wouldnt my truck die after a short while? Also, I had my battery tested at Auto zone about 2 months ago and he said it was working like a peach. Obviously my battery isnt getting charge so im going to say the alternator is good but there is something wrong in between there and the battery. I just recently changed my terminals so i suppose there could be a problem there. anyone else know what this could be?

[BleedDodge]

This reminds me of when the motor went in my green truck.

I drove 15 miles without any oil pressure, the guage said. I figured it was the sending unit or something and I stopped and checked the oil, it was fine, so I kept going. I began to slow down for the stop sign one mile away from my house, and the motor stalled. The tach went to zero. I coasted to the sign and fired it back up and drove the mile to my house. It stalled again when I took the corner to my driveway. I got it up to the house and it wouldn't even turn over. At this point the motor was heat seizing and I didn't know it. The battery was acting like it was dead because the starter would just click because the motor was actually locked up.

I took the known good battery from my red truck and put it in, same thing. I even started my red truck before I took it out just to make sure it was good and it was. I figured a relay or something was shot just because it would click, but that didn't explain the stalling, and I knew it was something bad. The next morning I got it running with the red truck battery, but there was shavings on the dipstick, and then a couple minutes after it was idling the oil pressure guage dropped again and I heard lifters, and I knew it was bad. This was July 2005 mind you. Same truck as yours, mine's a 2wd I dunno what yours is.

When we pulled the motor and did the autopsy, there was sludge everywhere. I had owned the truck for a few months at this point, but it was only my second day of driving it that it was no good. The sludge had blocked the screen in the oil pump pickup tube, and it couldn't pull any oil. That's why there was no pressure. The previous owners probably never changed the oil once, and the motor had 65k miles on it. I don't think it had an oil change just because I saw the sludge with my own eyes, and because when I called for warranty they couldn't prove any prior maintenance. I got my motor though.

Lots of guys will tell you that a dodge truck shuts down automatically as soon as there's no oil pressure, and I'm here to tell you that's false. My truck drove 15 miles at about 60 mph before it locked up. That just goes to show how tough these engines can be and how long they should last, even without being maintained.

I don't remember reading your thread about your oil pressure troubles but I'm going to search for it now.

[HeavyJ]

still could be alternator, with it running, check voltage with a voltmeter, should be showing 13-14 volts. if its steady even if you rev the engine a little the alt may just be putting out just enough voltage to keep things going but still bad. the same autozone can probably test your alt off the truck.

[mrtech]

there are only 3 things that control the charging system in your truck.good connections is one,alternator is two and the computer is three.i would recheck your connections at the battery,then take a multimeter and set it to 20 dc volts.then connect the red lead to + on the battery,then the black lead to - on the battery while the engine is running.the volts should be 13.8-14.5 volts.if its higher either way,the alternator or regulator is bad.the alternator is not cheap,but is the most common problem.the regulator is part of the pcm and is more costly to replace.from my experience i would suspect the alternator.

[cranknandcrankn]

this issue solved. As stupid as I will look, the post just needed scrubbed up a bit. thanks for the replies.