My 1986 Corvette hasn't short problem somewhere that I cannot find I checked all the fusesI checked all the relays still cannot find the short do you have any suggestions where might be it's not coming from the alternator is not coming from the battery and not coming from the starter help please

 

Where there's a true "short", you should see smoke! How much time does it take for your battery to go dead? How did you confirm it's not the alternator? Are any of your interior lights staying on? Park the car in a dark location and look for clues of something staying on. Any strange noises . . . clicking circuit breaker? Antenna motor? Headlight motor? Is your rear window heating element warm? Do all power seat functions work properly? Does the battery hold its charge if you leave it disconnected?

That's a start!

 

First, punctuation would help you

Secondly, I'm thinking your saying your battery is draining.....disconnect the positive cable and check the amp draw...go out at night and look for lights.....

 

Welcome to the forum. There is a terminal post behind the battery that is insulated from the frame by a small piece of plastic and has most of your fusible links. If that has corrosion products on the terminal insulator it can cause a battery drain. Be careful when cleaning it because the terminal is connected directly to the positive side of the battery.

 

Please disconnect the battery before touching any of the wires on that particular post (mentioned above) that supplies power to the fusible links. On my 1988 C4 it has seven fusible links supplying most of the car with power. That post caused a serious voltage drop in my car. Be sure the connections are clean on every terminal that connects to this post. I put battery grease on my ring terminals and on the post AFTER all the corrosion is gone. If this post ever got grounded the battery would empty everything it has in it on that junction and you would probably have a fire or at least some serious smoke. On my 1988 the cable supplying the power is pretty large allowing a lot of current if needed.

Harbor freight sells a tool that plugs into the fuse block and will show you any current flowing through that particular circuit. They are cheap and very handy in times like this.

How old is the battery? Have you disconnected it charged it up and watched it for a few days? A batteries "self-discharge" rate goes up as batteries age. Most batteries are not given a annual maintenance like they deserve and used to "need". Most of us are still using the standard Flooded Lead Acid battery and those USE water. I don't care if it says maintenance free or whatever, every FLA needs the electrolyte level checked and maintained. I remove the battery from the car in the late fall and put it into my garage. It gets cleaned, electrolyte topped off and a full charge to help de-stratify the electrolyte. Then I float charge it one day every week during the winter months. Before getting re-installed the battery gets the electrolyte topped off again and then I clean the battery posts and the connectors and then I charge the battery completely again so that ensures my car has full battery power available.

I have heard of the Limit switches failing on the power seats that can provide a nice steady drain on your battery. Alternators are famous for making power but they are also known users of power when they have a diode fail internally. Starter connections are okay, nice and tight and clean? How about your alarm system? The little timers that control the interior lighting like to fail.

If I were doing the testing I would probably put a fluke meter between the battery Negative and the Negative cable allowing it to see what is flowing through which direction and how much. Be careful if the drain is over 10 amps it would pop the internal fuse in the meter, don't run the car this way just use it for testing purposes. If you have a drain on the meter then you can start removing fuses until you have isolated the offending circuit.

Don't forget your "Ground Straps" as they too are very important to these cars. My antenna didn't work properly until I replaced a ground strap on the exhaust system to frame.

Best Regards,
Chris

 

I had a battery drain to locate on my 86. I had the HF tester and used that along with a meter to determine the amount of draw that was happening and where the issue was. To get to the connection lug mentioned earlier, it's under the battery tray so the battery and the tray has to come out to get access to it.
With the HF tester, you pull the fuses in the fuse panel out one at a time and plug the meter into the slot and the fuse into the tester. It shows the amount of current being drawn through the circuit. Remember there are 4 circuit breakers in the front edge of the fuse panel also. You can test those also but you'll have to make some jumpers for that. Remember the interior lights circuit is drawing current when the doors are open, so take that into account.
Checking out the connections on the lug below the battery tray, I disconnected all of them. I hooked the positive battery cable up using a jumper cable to the positive battery (with the battery out of the car) then used a meter between the block and the negative battery post after connecting each of the wires on the lug back one at a time. In my case I found it was something stuck in the well in the console was pressing down on the power seat control continuously. Took care of that and the battery drain was done.
Here's a picture of the meter. Hope that helps. Good luck.