Good evening bricksters. Help me, someone, with my 83 245 which was suddenly dead Wednesday morn. I have traced things far enough to know that fuse 8 shows a spark and the battery will show .2 drain to the negative cable. Spent an hour reading posts on central locking. There are four wires on #8. I have the CL relays unplugged and the driver's door switch unplugged. Cables through the hinge are not shorted. In fact there is no drain on the wire that goes to the glove box light and the central locking (that's one), no drain on the wire to the front dome lamp (that's two). There is also a siamesed double lead on #8. One of those leads goes to the cargo area courtesy light. The other I cannot figure out. I have no engine compartment lamp. What I do know is that it shows a .2 drain when checked with a meter (what a coincidence!). Here's the weird part. After checking drain, if I put a continuity tester on it, it shows grounded. So does the hot lead at the rear cargo area lamp. If I connect a voltmeter to the lead and the fuse, I get battery voltage steadily. However the continuity (when connected) steadily drops until there is not enough to make my meter beep, down around .300. If I then connect that lead back to the fuse I get a spark, it will show a drain again at .2, and it will show grounded....until it doesn't. I can go through this ten times with the same results. This condition exists with all the other #8 leads and/or items disconnected. When everything is connected, all of the courtesy lamps and the central locking operate properly. Should I reconcile myself to a short in the harness, something rubbed raw? Can someone tell me what that other lead is? The wiring diagrams sure haven't helped so far. Alternator is charging steadily at 14.46 volts. I'm going to leave that double lead off tonight and see if the battery is dead in the morning. By the way, it killed two batteries, but both charged right up and test well with a draw on them. All leads (no pun intended) will be received with oodles of gratitude.

DS