Electrical: Battery is draining Options

[hi4head]

OK - I got the opossum taken care of and have figured out the windshield washer system, now time for a real problem.

Since the car has been sitting for the past eight years without a battery, I put a fresh battery in about 1-1/2 weeks ago. Friday I noticed that the battery was about dead. I figured that maybe we'd left the cabin light on or something and didn't give it much thought, just hooked up my trickle charger and let the battery recharge.

Yesterday it was about dead again and I started growing suspicious. I figured something was either making contact and it shouldn't be, or I had a bad battery.

I've disconnected that battery and hooked my multimeter up to the positive strap and the ground strap. I would expect that it should show an open circuit, but no, it shows that current can be passing. When I flip the cabin light switch on, it shows no resistance (as expected).

I've left the meter connected and started going through various visible connections and points in the system. (i.e. disconnected each of the connections on the relay board in the engine compartment, removed each of the fuses there and on the fuse board under the steering wheel, disconnected the clock) Nothing that I've done has changed the resistance level shown on the meter.

Anyone have any ideas on how to procede?

Thanks,

Chris

[hi4head]

Thanks again guys.

I think (hope) that I've got it resolved. At least my meter is now showing no current drain when I check from the ground strap to the negative post. Also, when I do a continuity test, it shows an 'open' circuit and I'm not getting current across each of the fuses. Yee-Haw.

The only thing that I've disconnected was the radio. I find it hard to believe that it would fully drain the battery. I wonder if we had other things on and didn't know it while we were working on the car. I know while we checking the FI system, we were turning over the engine and had the fuel pump and FI system operating to see if the injectors were firing properly. Maybe all of this could have drained the system sufficiently and then I was looking for the needle when the culprit was the haystack.

One of my colleagues at work is an excellent shadetree mechanic (even if all he owns and works on are old Mercedes diesels and diesel tractors). He's also tending to think that Hoss may also be possibly on the right track -- it could be a bad battery.

I've pulled the battery out of the car and have it on the trickle charger and will leave overnight. Let's see what happens then.

Thanks again guys.

Chris