finding a short

[gsbuick65]

whats the method with a test light and pulling fuses to find a short? I cant seem to figure whats running my battery down, thought it was my electronic climate control but I disconnected both the dash control and the blower motor module and the battery still goes dead. aleady tested the battery.

 

[rmar]

put you test lite in line with the ground wire at the bat.

it will light up. Start pulling fuses. When it goes out you have found your circuit that the unwanted ground is on. If your hood is up unplug those drains/ radio/ trunk.ect...

 

[gsbuick65]

put you test lite in line with the ground wire at the bat.

it will light up. Start pulling fuses. When it goes out you have found your circuit that the unwanted ground is on. If your hood is up unplug those drains/ radio/ trunk.ect...

disconnect the ground, clamp test light to cable touch the other end to battery? if so I did that and light wasnt on.

 

[rmar]

check your test lite

 

[rmar]

any luck?

 

[gsbuick65]

any luck?

yea light works

 

[rmar]

But not between the neg and post?


If that is the case there is not enough drain to lite it. Bat. shouldn't go down.

Load test it.

 

[gsbuick65]

But not between the neg and post?

dont understand? I opened the door and test light came on, I have neg cable loose from battery, test light wire clamped to battery, probe stuck into neg cable, no light, but I did notice a very light spark at the probe when I touched the cable, but the bulb doesnt light.

 

[rmar]

when you open the door the test lite should lite up.

 

[X Ray]

put you test lite in line with the ground wire at the bat.

it will light up. Start pulling fuses. When it goes out you have found your circuit that the unwanted ground is on. If your hood is up unplug those drains/ radio/ trunk.ect...

Illustration ...

 

[gsbuick65]

Illustration ...

yea thats what I did, light doesnt come on, but the neg cable sparks when I touch it to the battery to hook it up. battery has 12.99 volts, I disconnected all the extras I had plugged into the fuse box and took out the radio fuse. ill check battery volts in the morning.

 

[gsbuick65]

so I got up this morning, volts was 12.76. vacuumed the car out only drained the battery to 12.68 with doors open. ill leave the digital gauges unpluged, maybe one of them is draining it?

 

[charlief1]

If you have a multi meter of an amp gauge you can use it instead of the test light. Use the volt feature on the meter. See how much drain you have. You shouldn't have more than about 6-7 volts with everything off. You also might want to check the trunk light and hood light. Just unplug them.

 

[gsbuick65]

I hooked up the volt meter the same way, it shows 12.71 volts, pos (of meter)to neg battery cable neg (of meter) to battery. when I hooed the cable back up to battery battery showed 12.69. thats not to much is it? still have the gauges unpluged, but did put radio fuse back in and plugged up climate control module. I know that will have a little drain cause the red wire going to it is hot.

 

[charlief1]

If I remember right it should be somewhere between 5 and 7 volts for the memory. If I'm wrong some one will correct me I'm sure. An easy way to "fix" it is to have some sort of cut off except for the puter memory and radio.