Startin her off.This is all in a 66 Buick Electra 225 with a 401 nailhead. My alternator, v.regulator and battery are working. New battery, new regulator, original alternator tested a few times. I have a bad power draw overnight. I put in the new batt and the car started fine. Fast forward overnight. The car turns over 3 times then loses it's juice. The only thing I can think of is the push button starter or my factory a/c. There is a junction/relay that my battery connects to. Also connected to this is a wire from my push button start, and the power supply to the a/c. I have gone through and wired everything correctly and as best as I can. The purple and yellow wires hooked to the starter, are disconnected at the firewall. The other end is connected to the starter. Now spliced into the purple wire is the other wire from the push button starter. I also know the power cord to the a/c relay is not factory correct. What steps can I take to find the power draw and stop it?
the only way i can think of the ac doing this is the compressor clutch staying energized, i dont see how a push button starter could do this unless it had a light on it or something. does the car have an alarm? thats one of the biggest paracitic draws in a car. another possibilty could be the glovebox light or trunk light if they the car has them. make sure the interior lights and stuff like that are off. disconnect the negative battery cable and hook up an amp meter. you shouldnt read more then .05 or .25 i cant remember which one it is but i will find out tomorrow. either way more then that then its time to start pulling fuses to find what circut its in.:beers2:
I will check this in a few minutes. Glove light and trunk light aren't hooked up as far as I know, but I will check. Also, it might be my power window motor. With the car off I can roll up and down the windows, is that supposed to happen?
Checked all the fuses, nothing changed. I tried jumping the battery to no avail. Then I was checking my battery with my voltmeter, and the volts were going down by .01 every second until it hit about 1-3.00 volts. I have a power junction block where my battery + connects and on this is the push button start and the a/c power. Anytime my battery is connected I hear my a/c compressor engage and is pulling about 4-6 volts with the car off. I tried a different voltage regulator and it didn't help either. Here is the power junc block. It is broken on the inside, dont know where to get a new one. Could this junction be drawing all my power? Even the starter is connected from this.
It has the wires for a system but the prev. Owner took whatever system they had. It has the original radio, and sony speakers in the front. Radio doesn't seam to work or isn't hooked up.
the compressor clutch should be able to be engaged with the engine off and the key on and the dash switch on. so if the clutch engages whenever the battery is hooked up then that tells me that you may have a bad a/c selector switch or a short in the clutch circut. unplug the a/c switch on the dash and if the clutch disengages then change the switch. or a temporary fix is to unplug the compressor :beers2:
Well today I hooked up a ford solenoid relay and did the jumper wire on my starter. Everything worked great. I get home (6 hours later) and the batt is still draining. I dont know where it is at. I have gone through the engine harness a few times. The only things Im not sure on are the a/c. I also noticed that with the headlights on, if i wiggle the headlight switch or move it up/down the lights will go out. Could this cause the problem or is it wishful thinking?
Easy to unplug the AC to check. I dunno if it could be a worn wire feeding juice to ground. Dunno if that can happen on a car. Heard of house wiring doing that but the juice wnet into the ground, dirt so it never got hot enough to do anything, cept use up juice.
Update..again. Ok after weeks of my door jamb switch lights working, all of a sudden when i shut the doors the lights stay on. If I pull them or wiggle the lights dim and brighten. Also, my drivers side rear seat cig lighter is pulling 6.5 volts with the key out.
Them things get crusty inside and will draw current, and wont pop a fuse since its made to heat metal red hot. unplug the sucker, no need to be smoking back there. Buy a bic
I hope that stops it. I dont even smoke so theyre gone. This same damn lighter burnt my finger b/c it didnt put off any heat or color on the coils. Maybe it was a sign. How do I fix the door jamb switches that worked 30 minutes ago?
They can be replaced, they aren't very special. Can unhook it also if its a problem for now. They are sort of dumb but work good when they work right. Just take a small deep well socket to them to screw them out and inspect it. You will see how it works, they just make the ground connection for the light when the door is open.
Thank you much for the help. They worked fine until my battery drained. My interior lights and headlights dimmer and brighten IF : 1. i wiggle the headlight switch 2. i wiggle or pull the door jamb switches. I am going to disconnect the lighters tomorrow morning.
Didn't fix the problem. The battery didnt drain at all but it stayed only at 12volts. When I try to turn the car on the starter just rapidly clicks.
you say the battery didn't drain but it wont start? Maybe its been drained dead one to many times? They often go bad when drained to far.
i agree. however if you took the cables off a bunch of times i would check those first before you get a battery. if its a deep cycle battery then simply charge it because deep cycles are made to take this. if the connections are good then have the battery load tested too because if it was drained so far down then when the electrons wont know where to go until they have a load on them.:beers2:
Had the battery charged and everything is back to normal. Left car overnight and he still starts up this morning. I'm thinking it was the door jamb switch grounding out wrong.
thats what it usually is with paracitic draws like this. alot of times its the trunk lights too and people cant figure out what it is because they are too afraid when they climb in the trunk to check it, their buddies wont let them out:beers2:
