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Quick hint on finding an electrical short 700 1989

I had to think for a moment on this one.

What works is you may get confused of what circuit is on or is it off! It's not going to tell you how much! Car systems are more complex.

I find it best to put a ampere meter of a Digital Volt Ohm Meter between the battery and the cars circuit. Either side of the battery will work.

You are looking for a drain. A current draw. A dome lamp .500ma to 1.25 amps. depending on the size.

Clocks or a alarm system are only about .250ma. can be all right but I like less or 0.0

Check for things to be off everywhere. Dome lights, trunk lights and so forth. Some things are on in a car all the time. Radio memories, engine computers etc., but these are small.

I pull out fuses to rule out those circuits one at a time. When I pull a fuse and if the drain is on that circuit then you decide if the nature of that circuit is high enough to warrant the problem.

Check charging output with different loads at the battery. Charging voltage of 13.2 min. to 14.2 max are in the normal range.

Leaving the positive post connected place a voltmeter place between the ground cable and the battery negative post. It should read only a couple hundreds of a volt or zero is best. 0.00 to 0.02 volts. Indication of good battery ground cable. If it has a higher reading look for corrosion and bad connections that effect battery charge.

A previous bad battery could have damage the alternator. If the alternator has a bad diode it could drain a battery quickly. A warm battery will tell if it is suffering a large drain or shorted cell in a battery that can drain internally.

If the cable sparks when remove or adding it to complete the hook up is a drain even without a meter. Question is how big is big.

As far as the light coming on , on the AIR? Something may be touching the bulb holder of the switch housing and grounding it momentarily. It is not enough to cause a battery drain in any kind of, short order. No pun intended! Well, maybe just a little!

If the console had been opened up the person may have left some wires routed tight and the car bumping down the road could do it.

Hope this gives you some leads, other than those on a meter. Food for thought anyway!






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New Quick hint on finding an electrical short [700][1989]
posted by  Andrew in AL subscriber  on Fri Oct 24 14:18 CST 2008 >


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