CTC = Canadian Tire Corporation. They will test the battery and alt for free. According to the tag the batt in my Monte is 10 years old and still had a good CCA when tested back in the spring ( even with running the 4x12's & 4x10's in the trunk ). However my van is only 7 years old and I am on the 3rd battery and it's all-stock. New Battery or Old Battery, It's kinda the luck of the draw. Rebuilt alternators are the same crap shoot as some rebuilders only fix whats wrong and leave the rest.
So with that in mind a good test for the battery is both a load test and a CCA test. The CCA test will show the Amperage that the battery will store and a load test will place a load or draw on the battery at least half of it's CCA rating. The load test is the test you would be concerned with. They place a load on the battery ( to replicate the use of your lights, starter, heaterfan, defrost, ect... ) and If the battery drops below a certain voltage during the test it fails ( 10 or 11volts iirc ). Also if it does not regain to a certain voltage after the test ( bounce back ) then it fails. All the while it may have a decent CCA rating and show 12+v. Both the Load and CCA test are free and if you bought the battery at CTC then they will replace it ( just like they did for my van ). The mech I used to use actually has a small hand-held unit about the size of a code reader which does this in-car.
Regarding the short a Quick check is to pull the fuses one at a time and run a test light across the terminals. If there is draw then the light comes on. If the light comes on then check each circuit and see where the draw is. If you can't locate the draw then leave that fuse out and see if the problem persists.
Link below to a flow chart for chasing down electrical gremlins might explain it better than me
http://www.ifitjams.com/circuit.htm
Good luck getting into the footwell BTW. I had to do this years ago and ended up pulling out the front seat so I could lay on my back.
So with that in mind a good test for the battery is both a load test and a CCA test. The CCA test will show the Amperage that the battery will store and a load test will place a load or draw on the battery at least half of it's CCA rating. The load test is the test you would be concerned with. They place a load on the battery ( to replicate the use of your lights, starter, heaterfan, defrost, ect... ) and If the battery drops below a certain voltage during the test it fails ( 10 or 11volts iirc ). Also if it does not regain to a certain voltage after the test ( bounce back ) then it fails. All the while it may have a decent CCA rating and show 12+v. Both the Load and CCA test are free and if you bought the battery at CTC then they will replace it ( just like they did for my van ). The mech I used to use actually has a small hand-held unit about the size of a code reader which does this in-car.
Regarding the short a Quick check is to pull the fuses one at a time and run a test light across the terminals. If there is draw then the light comes on. If the light comes on then check each circuit and see where the draw is. If you can't locate the draw then leave that fuse out and see if the problem persists.
Link below to a flow chart for chasing down electrical gremlins might explain it better than me
http://www.ifitjams.com/circuit.htm
Good luck getting into the footwell BTW. I had to do this years ago and ended up pulling out the front seat so I could lay on my back.
