Battery Connection Help Options

[AvalonFal]

I've been having problems with the battery draining over a couple of days of non-use, so I'm intending to replace the PO's battery cables (a few splices in the current ones) and go from there. PO relocated battery to the rear trunk & that's OK. However, I came across this situation:

- Engine off, key out.
- (+) battery cable disconnected at battery
- (-) battery cable still connected

I measured across the disconnected (+) cable to the connected (-) cable & got a voltage of around .6 - .75 volts. Is this normal to have voltage across a disconnected (+) cable??

Car starts fine when battery is charged, but, as I said, battery loses juice after being idle for a couple of days.

[stugray]

Put the meter in current mode (this usually requires moving the red lead to the other jack).
Set the selector to I-DC(Amps)

Connect the battery negative to car chassis.

Connect the red lead to the battery positive.
Connect the black lead to the red wire that you disconnected.
Read the current.

By putting the meter "in series" all of the current runs through the meter and it can measure it.

You can do this with each wire that used to be connected to the battery to find the "parasitic current draw".

If the circuit you are testing has a current draw more than an amp or two, you can easily blow the fuse in the meter, then it will never read current again (until you replace the fuse).
That is the #1 reason people have trouble getting the current measurement to work.
Either they blew the fuse when first connected, or someone blew it previously.
Cheap meters typically only measure up to 1 AMP.
Better meters can go to 10 AMPs, but even 10 amps is not much especially if you forget to put the leads back where they were and try to measure the voltage across the battery (instant fuse blown)