Battery going dead in my 1988 Ford Ranger XLT V-6 Relay was chattering(The Brown plug EEC relay) so went to auto parts store for another.The man behind counter gave me a Green plug Fuel relay said it would work since then 3 days ago battery dead every morning.Could relay be the problem??Never went dead till I replaced relay?? Thanks in advance..

 

Usually when a relay chatters it is because there is insufficient voltage to keep it closed.
If you suspect the relay is the problem , just take it out when day is done and see if there is enough power in the battery to start the vehicle after you reinstall the relay the next morning, otherwise you may have a battery that is getting ready for retirement or poor connections or possibly a charging system problem where not enough is being put back into the battery when the engine is running.

 

I swapped batterys out with a brand new one was dead in morning.Fully charged now just removed relay and will check it in morning,Will keep you posted.Does any one know the part number for the EEC relay??

 

Some relays may be color coded, but different manufacturers may choose to make their relays a different color from other manufacturers. I wouldn't be too concerned with the color in this case. There may be another problem with the relay activating circuit where something could be holding the relay energized when it shouldn't be. It is generally activated by the ignition being turned on, but it would require a test lite to confirm if the relay coil is getting current supplied to the relay coil when the key is off or if you feel the relay click when you install it with the key off.

 

Took the relay out last night and this morning battery dead again?Hanky the orginal relay does click and chatter with key off??

 

There is a path for power to the EEC relay and that path is provided by the ign switch.
At this point I would suspect the ign switch is not going into the full off position either because of misadjustment or defective switch.Does anything that requires the key to be on stay operative even with the key off like maybe the radio or wipers etc.

 

Nothing stays on with the key off tried every thing.Truck is driving me to drink.Went to garage and they told me to pull fuses one at a time or bring it in which I know is going to cost big $$$$$$$$ which I don't have.Thanks for your help hanky.

 

As long as you know how to prevent the battery going dead you can take your time and check a lot of things until you find the source of the relay being activated without the key being on.
We'll try to get hold of a diagram to see if there are any other paths that we are overlooking.
So you don't get into trouble I'll offer to drink for you, if that is OK.

On another note, sometimes when a ground is missing it will take a path through a relay and in this case it just happens to be the EEC relay. Hang in there it is probably something simple, but just will take a little time to locate it. In the meantime it wouldn't be a bad idea to check all the ground connections you can find to make sure they are clean and not with the slightest bit of corrosion. Many times a ground connection will look OK, but still not make the connection.

 

Found a bad ground strap going from the hood to the fender replaced it,got out multimeter battery 12.75 running up to 14.00 or more idle 12.50-13.50 someone told me to pull off pos+ cable when running truck stalled does that mean alternator is bad??Left the battery hooked up last night this morning dead.Thanks again hanky..

 

You should NEVER run the engine with any battery cable removed. That is bad advice!
The reason you DO NOT do that is because without the battery in the system the alternator has no charging limit and you can destroy the alternator. In the "old days" they did this without too much problem, but for the reason stated it's a foolish move to do. Today's alternators are different.
You could, if your meter has enough capacity to measure AMPS, place the leads between the battery negative cable end and the battery negative post , with everything off and see what reading you get. It has to be considerable to drain the battery overnight.
Keep in mind it has to be something that is able to work even without the key on. Pulling the fuses is one way to do this although voltage drop testing across each fuse is a better way.