Danny D'Amico wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 00:01:04 -0600, Nightcrawler® wrote:

Good grief. It's charged to 13.5 volts

LOL! I don't think I have ever seen a battery, showing full charge, be
bad. It might not last long, but that is not the issue, here.

That's my experience also.
For example, a fully-charged d-cell will be something around 1.65VDC, and,
if it's low, it will be something around 1.4VDC (give or take) but not
over its nominal charge of 1.5VDC.

Then again, the loading test is more accurate; but you have to know the
load and you have to start with a fully-charged battery, so it's harder
to accomplish.

Have you ever worked on car charging system and battery? If battery
shows mere 12V it is a toast. Charging voltage is around 14V as you
know. And in this case hi Z Fluke is not a good choice, use something
like Simpson 260. If I were you I'd replace x-former and battery and
start from there. If you want, put a in-line fuse and protect them in
case. You can talk and and talk and scratch your head all day and
it is not gonna get fixed.