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it is raining here right now and i just woke up.
so i ducked outside and pulled the plug from the antenna,
there was a minimal drain from the battery over night, but it was a drain. went from 11.8v to 11.68v
when i get a chance i will go outside and check the LGB wire at the plug and see if it is getting a signal.
i assume if i connect that to ground and detect voltage on the circuit then it is live and should not be.
i hope its not that cus fixing that would require pulling the radio which is just a PITA i don't wanna do atm....
green/black to ground = no voltage, no current draw
brown/slate to ground = 12v, .2A current draw.
so my question is what is the step here.
as that is the wire plugging into the antenna and at this point the antenna was disconnected.
so the antenna could not be causing the drain.
what else is on that circuit? just the boot release i can see
i know the boot release does not work when i pull that fuse.
i will pull the boot release relay and see if draw on that circuit is still present.
ok so pulled the boot release relay and still getting a draw on that circuit.
but i get the same reading on a circuit that i know has no load.
if i connect a wire direct to battery positve and then put my multimeter on that and ground it i am still reading the same draw.
if i check across the terminals on any batter even disconnected from car i get the same draw.
so the load must be what the multimeter is drawing on a live circuit. thats all i can guess
like i said battery is not staying charged yet i am not reading any substantial battery draw.
i am inclined to think maybe this is alternator related causing a draw,
but if the alternator is causing a draw would this not be showing up as a draw on the battery?
pulled fuse 10 and nothing is changing.
any completed circuit is giving the same reading of a tiny draw. even when i know there is no load whatsoever.
but the multimeter needs to be set to read milliamps to pick these draws.
" what is easy way to fully disconnect alternator? "
The only way to not have any complicating factors is the large battery cable B + post on the alternator.
this would isolate the alternator from causing issues of drain
but that brings about a possibility of the starter solenoid shorted to ground., you would isolate alternator and starter at the right front wheel arch
The change in battery end storage device can be charging or drain
on the charging aspect the terminal post must all be tight through to the battery positive post so you have 4 of them
Do not over tighten the battery positive post , breaks the nut underneith in half , ask me how I know
starter solenoid tie in point
right front wheel well arch terminal post
terminal post by removing the rear seat pan
power protection fuse terminals attacted to the positive battery clamp
if you have some corrosion going on with the 2 wire round connector on the alternator it can fail to have the alternator delivering proper charging voltage
well seems the battery has a slight issue.
sitting in car disconnected.
tested the other day was 12.3v, then last night tested and was 12.19v, tested just now this morning and was 12.17v.
so it is loosing charge just sitting there not connected to anything.
Ok so totally stumped. Overnight drain still happening.
Not the battery. Different battery tried.
so when i disconnect the negative terminal and connect my multimeter to the negative terminal and negative cable i am getting nothing really measuring as a load. (See pic 1)
i get the same reading when i do the same on the positive terminal, and i get the same reading when just bridging the terminals on a disconnected battery.
i get the same reading with all fuses connected or disconnected.
when i have the battery connected to the car i get a reading of .2v different to if i disconnect it.
eg, 12.13 when upnlugged, 12.11 when connected.
that indicates to me a load on the battery.
i cannot for the life of me trace this down.
i thought maybe it was something i wired in. But disconnecting everything yields same results.
after first starting the car with battery under charged i was getting reading of 14.4v. (Car idling high at 1200rpm)
once the car warmed up, battery would have charged a bit, car entered warm running mode (idle dropped to 900 (still high but thats a other issue) the voltage has sat stable at 13.8v.
the more i test the more i find there is no problems but yet there is a problem somewhere
Can’t wait to get home and test this out now.
i have just had an idea.
when i connected my aftermarket keyless entry i think i have used the wrong ground.
i did not pay enough attention to what ground i used.
i grounded it out to REAR TRUNK GROUND STUD.
which is the same ground stud used by antenna and a couple of other things.
so my security module always being powered is now making that ground live sending power to anything on that circuit.
this explains why my antenna has been raising when battery is connected.
also explains why my control board burnt out. I thought it burnt out cus it was old. But it more likely burnt out as it was shorting out.
i will re route it to the ground stud the factory security module uses and see what happens.
i never thought of sharing ground studs as being an issue. Big oversight on my behalf
this could easily be the cause of my drain.
does that make sense or it is just me overthinking as usual?
Ok so…..
got a new meter so now i can start to get some readings and try and sort this out.
so i noticed my first problem is to do with the radio. Something radio related is causing spikes which is what is sending the antenna up and down.
will find the exact problem soon. Think maybe it is an antenna booster i installed. It is on fuse 8 in the boot amp spikes up to 1.5A causing the antenna to raise and then lower and then raise again.
so that aside for a second.
starting with no fuses in boot box and boot latch closed i am reading
60mA draw. So very good. Now plugging fuses in one by one.
fuse 1 no change
fuse 2 no change
fuse 3 no change
fuse 4 security system and it goes to 65mA. So still good
fuse 5 bpm, initial spike to 115mA then settles to 66.5mA. Still good.
fuse 6 jds + radio telephone it goes to 95mA. What is this and why would it be drawing 30mA? Is it the antenna for the key fob?
fuse 7 fuel pump initial rise to 98, then settles back at 95mA
ignoring fuse 8 for now………
Rest of fuse box no change.
so is fuse 6 pulling 30mA normal?
but i have found the circuit which appears to have the problem and it is radio/antenna related on fuse 8 in the boot box.
when i get a chance again i will go through the other fuse boxes and see where the 60mA pull is coming from. Just for curiosity as i would say that is the normal operation of some modules
01-21-2023, 04:23 PM
