ok well ive done the fuse test, the alternator test,battery test and whatever other test and could not find out where my draw is coming from.

i took it to 2 shops that i trust and 1 of them had it for 2 days and i jsut got it back from being at the other one for 3 days. they both pretty much tore down the entire car tryin to find my draw but could not find it.

the guy i get my vette parts from locally said that 84's were known to have some kind of problem in the gauge cluster that would cause a drain. is that true?

 

Two shops couldn't find the source of drain current? They suck! The cluster in 84's is no more prone to leakage current than any other C4! If it were the cluster, than pulling fuses (there's more than one for the cluster) would find it. If your leakage isn't from a fused circuit, then it has to be from a circuit with a fusible link, or a circuit breaker. Only one circuit in your car does not have an overcurrent protective device and that is the starter motor. How much current is the leakage? GM says it shouldn't exceed 50 milliamps.

 

the 1 shop said it was 400 milliamps. jsut put a new a/c delco starter in today not just for this but it was goin out.

 

It IS just that simple. Tell those shops to give you your money back and then FSM in hand, attack it yourself.

RACE ON!!!

 

didnt pay for anything


where would i start?

 

Sometimes there can be more than one drain, which can make finding the problem difficult. You end up chasing your tail for a while. I would suggest disconnecting everything that go to the positive battery terminal. At that point you'll have no drain, then reattach things one at a time until the drain shows up.

Good luck, Paul

 

I can't remember if I answered one of your previous posts about your drain problem, so here is my standard answer for excess battery drain.
I recommend you do these tests yourself because the two shops you tried appear to not know crap about electrics.
At night, check for underhood lights, door map lights, vanity mirror lights, center console light, cigarette lighter light, spare tire light. Do you have any aftermarket electronic items, theft alarm, CB radio, radar detector, am-fm radio, cd player, audio amplifier, satellite receiver, gps receiver, car phone? Unplug them while watching your ammeter. Feel your seat adjuster motors after the battery has been connected for awhile, are they warm? Stuck seat adjuster switch is a common fault. Your 84 car gets its power to all accessories through a wire that is connected to the large cable on your starter motor. Remove the neg batt cable (for safety) and remove the smaller wire on the starter, then have someone touch the neg cable to the neg battery post and you measure the current from the starter terminal (that the large cable is still connected to) to the smaller wire. My bet is you will measure 400 milliamps after the courtesy lights time out. If so, you have leakage current flowing through one or more fuses (you claim pulling fuses doesn't reduce leakage current right?), OR through one or more circuit breakers or through fusible links (that is every circuit in your car except the starter motor). I don't know if the circuit breakers are unpluggable, if they are, watch the leakage current while you unplug the circuit breakers or remove 12v power to them. I don't have an 84 circuit diagram, but there are circuits with fuseable links (8 on my 87) and you need to find those and disconnect them one at a time while watching the ammeter. Except for the starter motor, that covers every circuit in your vette and somewhere in this test you have to find the leakage current. If you want to find the leakage current the above procedure is what you MUST do and it is a lot of work. Get busy! Post in this thread if you have any further questions.

 

How fast does battery die?

 

There are two connectors coming off the small wire of the positive battery cable. One doesn't show a connection and the other goes straight to the fan relay. There is no junction block behind the battery on the '84. There are three wires, plus one with a Siamese connection, all on the large stud of the starter solenoid with the positive battery cable.

RACE ON!!!

 

i hate vehicle electrical. i think for the hell of it im just gonna pull all the fuses and stuff at the fuse panel and put them in one by one and see what happens. i will try what you said jfb but lately my back has been killing me and im not able to do much work. i can see some of the fusable links by the battery and i do have a FSM with the electrical guide too. been reading through both of those and trying things and still havent been able to find anything.

i dont know if this is part of the problem but when they had my door panels off before changing my door locks i did see some stripped wires that werent hooked up to anything.

my stereo guy did tell me that he saw 3 wires under the dash (when he was doin my alram) 1 was constant power and 2 were accessory. he said that one of the accesory wires were staying on. im goin to them 2morrow and i will see if he can show/tell me what he thinks i can do.

 

ok well i havent messed with it yet sinc ei jsut woke up but i remembered something i wanted to ask you guys. when i was hooking one of the battery cables back up(with the doors closed) i noticed that the interior lights would flash and my stereo would turn on for a second.

what do you think that is?

 

Try it the the other way around. First, get all the lights to shut off by letting the car sit for a few minutes. Pull the interior light bulbs if necessary should you need to keep a door open. Also disconnect the underhood lights.

Then with your DVM set to milliamps, remove one fuse at a time and see if there is a drop in the reading. If not, replace that fuse and move to the next one.

It might be that the guy that installed the alarm messed something up. Unless the alarm is designed or programmed to flash the lights or turn the raio on, that should not be happening.