My '84 has a draw, if I let the car sit for more than a day or two I have to jump it to start. I know draws can manifest in a million places, my question is where are the most common places in a c4. Where should I look first. ANY help will be much appreciated!

 

I know it takes awhile, but you can start pulling fuses. The radio or one of the courtesy lights (glove box?) is another common area.

 

Are you sure your battery is good. It may only be taking a surface charge. Also check both ends of your grounds, and the main alternator and starter cables first. Then work toward other components. Remove, clean and tighten the cable connectors as you go.

 

At night check the underhood lights, vanity mirror lights, rear view mirror map light, door map lights, center console light, courtesy lights. If ok, remove the neg cable from the battery and connect an ammeter from the cable to the battery negative terminal. When the courtesy lights time out, switch the ammeter to lower scales until you can read the leakage current. It must be less than 50 milliamps. My 87 draws 27 ma. Do you have a radar detector, aftermarket alarm, aftermarket radio, aftermarket audio amplifier? Check em, or disconnect them and observe if the leakage current dropped. Next, pull the courtesy light fuse and watch the ammeter while you pull each fuse. A sudden drop in leakage will tell you which circuit needs looking at. Also, there are about 8 wires with fusible links that need to be removed one at a time while you watch the ammeter. I don't know where these are on an 84, on my 87 they are behind the battery. Some CFers have found that their seat adjust switches were stuck on and found it by noticing warm adjust motors.
How old is your battery? Batteries at the end of their life cannot hold a charge because internal leakage current discharges them. You can check this by disconnecting your battery, charging it up, then leave it disconnected (if you have normal leakage current of less than 50 ma.) and measure the battery terminal voltage. Fully charged is 12.9 volts or higher and discharged is 12.0 volts or lower. Normal batteries self discharge about 1/2 to 1 % each day.

 

With all of this, but first lets unhook your battery with everything OFF, remove your - battery cable, then insert, and amp meter between the bat, and the - cable. Read your current draw. Then you know something is taking electicity. Now you will see 20 milliamps there bouts for you stereo memory. It is important to shut off everything. Wait for the light delay inside the drivers comp. to de-energize. If it is going dead overnight. You should look for 1-4 or more amps. Realize that when a battery goes dead, it never comes back the same, and if it has gone dead 2-3 times. Take it to the recycler (it's shot). Unless of course you are running a deep cycle bat. such as an optima yellow top. Good Luck...

 

Wups, I didn't read your post entirely, sometimes I can be an idiot. Well, now I guess we have it covered twice... :o Need to read the whole post as suggested I guess. Good Luck...