How do you find an electrical drain/short?

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

All the displays in my car are LED, and the flip clock was not used past 1983 or 1984.

 

[Oldsmoletick]

My 85 had one.....Someone stole it though :x , That one worked too.

 

[84GP455]

My clock still works, 1984 and its accurate as heck with no battery drain.

 

[Bonnewagon]

My clock sucked juice and made noises like a wind-up toy. Pulling the fuse cut the horn off too so I just searched for gauges to replace it (thank's pontiacgp!) My Bonneville/GP book shows the stop lights are with the hazard/stop/ignition key warning/lights-on reminder fuse. I would think a short in the hazard/stop lights is indicated to cause that much heat. It might be in a wet/rusty area causing just enough leakage to ground to get the fuse holder hot, but not enough to blow the fuse. That is a major cause of house fires too. A tiny short or loose connection gets the wire really hot, but it's not enough to trip the breakers.

 

[Jg85350Regal]

since a bunch a lights were on the circuit you may want to check for a dead bulb just for hahas. My wifes pontiac had a one burnt out filimant in a tail light bulb that shorted against the other still working fillimant and was causing all sorts of funny problems abs light coming on and stuff and I was getting pissed because I just did front hubs in it a year or two earlier. It never causes the indicator to blink fast because theres two tail lights on each side just happened to notice one day and then I checked all the bulbs and replaced the burnt ones and all the issues went away. Lol there was also front markers on the car I never even knew lit up because they were both burn out.

 

[82cutty]

Do you have an after market radio? My 73 had a fairly new Kenwood Cd player around 2000. It would kill a battery in 3 days! The memory feature was drawing close to 2 amps..... Just my .02 cents Steve

 

[MR442]

My 442 has done it since new . If not ran in 2 3 weeks battery is dead . Even dealer had it several times in 88 89 and no fix.

Now that I want to run it . I'm going to go through all circuits and check for draw

Do any of you with this same problem have one of those dumb clocks that run at all times (non digital, rotate type)? My car does the same thing (dead after sitting too long) but I narrowed it down to that clock, remove the clock, car is fine. Sucks because I like it in there, and it's actually accurate, but it drains the battery. Just a thought......

Factory Premium Cassette no clock but Clock was the was first thing they said. I pulled the radio out at one time Hey its got memory not much draw but ? And it still did it .

Now I have a battery maintaining system I actually keep car plugged in .

 

[rccktmn2]

get a ohm meter,place the ohm meter between the positive cable of your battery and the battery terminal.see the reading,if it's high start pulling fuses.when it drops start with that circuit

You definately do not want to use an ohm meter, an ohm meter will measure resistance not amperage, if you use an ohm meter you will blow a fuse in your meter and you won't be able to read the amperage.