64 Battery Draw

[George Droggitis]

I have something drawing power off my battery and I have narrowed it down to the bottom fuse which is courtesy lights, license lights, and stop lights. I proceeded to remove all those bulbs one by one, but the draw still remained. Now I think that the short is in the fuse box itself. The draw goes away when I remove the bottom fuse. What is my next step to correct the problem.
Thanks George

[Wayne W.]

Re: 64 Battery Draw

Clock

[Wayne W.]

Re: 64 Battery Draw

Clock

[Jack H.]

Re: 64 Battery Draw

A good guess on Wayne's part; could well be the clock's winding solenoid points are fried together. But, it could also be 'invisible' lamps like glove box and worse yet, jury rigged wiring 'taps' like dangling splice in's made by prior owners for addition of 'goodies' like after-market radio/tape player, radar detector, Etc.

At this point you round up the 'ususal suspects' (clock, glove box lamp, cig lighter) and disconnnect them one at a time (don't think there may be only ONE problem) and HOPE you catch something simple. If that fails, you're stuck with pulling out the wiring diagram and manually tracing the branch circuit runs from that fuse outward.

There are some neat wiring fault diagnostics tools out there and most professional electrical shops have 'em. One is an inductive ammeter. You clip one end to ground and slide the tool along the path of the finished/wrapped wiring harness. The meter continues to point in the direction of current flow UNTIL you pass the location of the ground fault. Then the meter swings backwards. By slowly probing (forward/back), you wind up with the meter pointing straight down indicating the precise fault area. Then, you can unwrap the harness and find/repair the fault.

[Jack H.]

Re: 64 Battery Draw

A good guess on Wayne's part; could well be the clock's winding solenoid points are fried together. But, it could also be 'invisible' lamps like glove box and worse yet, jury rigged wiring 'taps' like dangling splice in's made by prior owners for addition of 'goodies' like after-market radio/tape player, radar detector, Etc.

At this point you round up the 'ususal suspects' (clock, glove box lamp, cig lighter) and disconnnect them one at a time (don't think there may be only ONE problem) and HOPE you catch something simple. If that fails, you're stuck with pulling out the wiring diagram and manually tracing the branch circuit runs from that fuse outward.

There are some neat wiring fault diagnostics tools out there and most professional electrical shops have 'em. One is an inductive ammeter. You clip one end to ground and slide the tool along the path of the finished/wrapped wiring harness. The meter continues to point in the direction of current flow UNTIL you pass the location of the ground fault. Then the meter swings backwards. By slowly probing (forward/back), you wind up with the meter pointing straight down indicating the precise fault area. Then, you can unwrap the harness and find/repair the fault.

[George Droggitis]

Re: 64 Battery Draw

I disconnected my clock but still have a draw on my battery. Any other ideas?
George D,
The e-mail address in my original post was incorrect. It is:
gdroggit@maine.rr.com

[George Droggitis]

Re: 64 Battery Draw

I disconnected my clock but still have a draw on my battery. Any other ideas?
George D,
The e-mail address in my original post was incorrect. It is:
gdroggit@maine.rr.com