Midnight 85

Well, I thought I had found my draw on my battery but I was wrong. I am showing 1.2A drain and I have unplugged almost everything that has a connector, no change. If anyone has any ideas I sure would like to hear them. Tomorrow I plan on checking the battery itself and the starter even tho it seems to work great. I am at a complete loss as to what to try next.

billschroeder5842

Yeah, unfortunate but you will have to disconnect everything connected with power and reconnect one, by one until you find your draw.

Tedious, but the only way.

Midnight 85

That's what I was afraid of, Thanks.

BOOT77

You pull fuses yet to try n narrow it down?

zapc

pull the 2 silver power accessory circuit breakers in the fuse panel, bet it goes away. one of them is for the power seats, there is a diode in the circuit somewhere by the seats that can cause a power drain. it was my problem. since I'm the only driver I set the seat where it needs to be and never had to put the breaker back in. solved my issue

Cliff Harris

The most common sources of battery drain are related to electric motors. That's the antenna, power seats and headlights. You could also have a problem inside the alternator.

hcbph

I had a power drain at one time in mine. Found it to be something was pushing down on the power seat button. Corrected that - problem gone.

Here's a couple of thing you can consider trying. Mine has a electrical lug under the battery tray where all the fusable links mount. I disconnected them all, then hooked them back up one at a time using jumper cables to hook the removed battery back up to the car and checked for the drain. That can help track down the main circuit that's the culprit.

Another is a tool I found at HF (thought I've seen them too on Ebay). You pull the fuses and circuit breakers out of the fuse panel one at a time. Insert the fuse into the tool and plug the tool into the fuse box where the fuse was. It will show any current draw on that circuit. The circuit breakers won't fit directly into the tool but it will work if you use some short jumpers.

Hope that helps.

WVZR-1

I like this as a first check in most cases.

I mentioned in your other thread that you don't have the "Jump Block" so fusible links are substantially more difficult. H/L motors & power antenna as Cliff mentioned. I believe there might have been suggestions in your older thread.

Midnight 85

Thanks, I never even gave them a thought.

My antenna has been disconnected for years but the headlight motors and the seats are on my to-do list.

Thanks

Thanks to you again, I will post back what I find.

Midnight 85

I pulled my horn relay tonight because my horns weren't working. Once I took the relay out the test light I had hooked in series to the negative battery cable/terminal went out. But I wanted to check the relay anyway so I hooked up with a test light to see if it was activating the horn circuit. I put power to it and it clicked and the light came on. I did this several times so I figured I must have a problem under the horn button. All I could find wrong was the ground wire that is attached to the horn button was only holding on by one or two strands of wire. Tomorrow I am going to get a new relay anyway and then put a new terminal end on the wire. Does it sound like my draw is fixed? I don't think so but you guys are much better with Corvette electricals than I will ever be.

hcbph

it's possible. Once you've fixed your wire and relay, you can measure the amps between the negative cable and battery with everything off and see if the value changes. You should have some draw for the alarm etc but it should very small if everything is good IMO.

Good luck

Midnight 85

I plan on doing just that, there had been no use in using the multimeter before because the test light was always on. When I pulled the relay that light went out so I was ready to celebrate. Once I get the ground fixed and the new relay in place it will be time to get a true reading. I have left the radio fuse out so that does not affect the reading.

VikingTrad3r

i love the puzzle solving on these cars. sounds like u r gaining ground on this one. subbed for your inevitable conclusion at the solution.

Hot Rod Roy

Are your horns disconnected? If so, you don't need a new horn relay! The click of the relay when you remove it, tells me the relay is working just fine. You just need to fix that short circuit (erroneous connection to ground) on the wire that goes to your horn button.

I'll bet your horn relay was warm!

Midnight 85

Guys, I apologize for this one, I will explain later tomorrow. As you probably already know, I have an '85. Would someone please look at the schematic and tell where some wires go? On my starter solenoid there are 4 wires on the same big post as the positive battery cable is, not including the cable of course, I need to know where those other 4 smaller wires go to. Thank you and I will give a full explanation tomorrow.

WVZR-1

Those are fusible links that power nearly all other components. In your FSM go to POWER DISTRIBUTION and you'll be able to sort it.

I'm guessing that you maybe eliminated all of them and the draw went away? 4 wires but only 3 ring terminals likely. The ring terminal with 2 wires is (1) an alternator lead (2) the lead to the POWER ACCESSORY, IN-LINE HORN FUSE, BLOWER CONTROL etc

Midnight 85

I can use every feature of the fsm EXCEPT the schematics, for some reason I just never have been able to understand those, that is why I made that earlier post, hoping someone would list them for me, you have done just that.

Midnight 85

When I posted this I was not feeling well and wanted to make my request as fast as possible. Since then I haven't found the actual gremlin yet but I have the wire it is affecting, it should be a lot easier now to end this nightmare. Once again I want to thank everybody who responded, whether I could use your advice or not is not the case, the fact that you were willing to help is. Thank you all and when I conclude this I will post the actual culprit.

Midnight 85

After dissecting almost every wire bundle on my car I can finally say I found the draw. I found 3 or 4 spots on various wires that were chafed pretty badly and a couple had frayed wire showing. This was all due to natural wear and tear on the harness from heat and vibration. My draw was 1.5A when I started and as of yesterday it is .0107. I had to completely open the plastic conduit and separate each wire until I found the problem, so much for the pull the fuses 'til it goes away theory. My advice to anyone faced with a similar situation, just go ahead and bite the bullet and start searching everything. I have wires and more wires that I need to re-tape up and place inside all new conduit.

Buick350X

post pics of wires and location, it might be common among all....