help my battery is draining
Discussion
Does it drain when the ignition is in the off position? If so you can likely rule out any electrical shorting on devices that require the ignition for power.
My first hunch would we to check the big cable to the starter for the reason that at some point it
will need to cross over the chassis to get inside where the motor is.
I'd check for frayed/worn insulation on that cable as the first process of elimination.
On another note, since this topic is electrical I'll ask here... Is my wedge (when it arrives)
going to be a negative ground or positive?
My first hunch would we to check the big cable to the starter for the reason that at some point it
will need to cross over the chassis to get inside where the motor is.
I'd check for frayed/worn insulation on that cable as the first process of elimination.
On another note, since this topic is electrical I'll ask here... Is my wedge (when it arrives)
going to be a negative ground or positive?
My 390se used to draw 4 amps when I first connected the battery lead. After 45 seconds it would return to a few tens of mA. Turned out to be the CD player doing funny things - it had a built in high power amplifier that it was charging up the power supply of - big capacitor inside the CD player. Seems they are designed to do this if they say 40W+40W on the tin.
-Jim
-Jim
wedg1e said:
Brap_Brap said:
Does it drain when the ignition is in the off position? If so you can likely rule out any electrical shorting on devices that require the ignition for power.
Not quite; the alternator (well more precisely the rectifier or regulator) could be sh@gged...
I stand corrected for the 1,932,256th time.
Edited by Brap_Brap on Sunday 11th March 22:23
thanks for that, i will start pulling fuses tomorrow night and check the leads. I did have a go at it today and i found that if you seperate the red wire which goes to the starter from the five brown wires on the positive battery terminal, it only drains when you touch the brown ones back onto the battery. I take it two go to the alternater,one goes to the ignition,these three were fine when put back onto the battery but when the other two were put back on the battery, the battery started draining rapidly. i will have another go tomorrow, see what happens and let ya know.
ps. this was with the ignition turned off. Thanks for your help Kev.
ps. this was with the ignition turned off. Thanks for your help Kev.
Brap_Brap said:
wedg1e said:
Positive ground?! Cars haven't been positive ground since about 1966 over here...
Really? The big misconception here is that a positive ground prevents cars from rusting as badly.
I thought they were all like that.... shows you what I know. *blush*
Aye, I've heard similar things. We used to get the odd foreign car into the early 70s that were +ve earth but most had gone the -ve earth route by then.
A lot of the corrosion over here is caused by the salt that local authorities spray on the roads in winter: probably similar to driving dune buggies up and down Florida beaches for a decade...
Brap_Brap said:
wedg1e said:
Positive ground?! Cars haven't been positive ground since about 1966 over here...
Really? The big misconception here is that a positive ground prevents cars from rusting as badly.
I thought they were all like that.... shows you what I know. *blush*
Actually, +ve will attract anions (e.g. Cl- ions from salt) which makes corrosion worse, if anything...
i think i've got it there was a fault in the permenant live from the fuse box to the ignition switch. The black one with a white trace. Don't ask me what it was but i bypassed it with another wire and it seems fine now with no drain on the battery. Cheers for your help everyone.Just got to put it all back together now. Nice to hear the v8 roar again. kevin
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