Dwayne,
The question really is, does your battery see a load when everything is
ostensibly turned off? To determine this, turn every electrical item off.
I can't think of anything that always draws current on a TR6, such as a
clock. Maybe other listers can testify regarding this. Disconnect the
positive lead from the battery and, using the ohmmeter function of your
multimeter, connect one lead of you meter to ground and the other to the
disconnected positive lead. When all is working properly you will see a
reading of infinite resistance (if no electrical equipment operates on a TR6
with all switches off). If you read a resistance value, note the value.
Then divide 13.5V by the resistance reading in ohms and the answer will be
the amount of current flowing and causing your battery to discharge. If you
want to, let me know what the numbers are that you get, and look at your
battery to determine the ampere-hour rating of your battery, too. We can
then make an estimate of how long your battery should supply current to the
mystery load before it becomes discharged.
Gary
'73
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dwayne Cooper" <dcooper@paciolan.com>
To: <6pack@autox.team.net>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 8:25 AM
Subject: Chasing a short
> I think I have a short in my electrical system. I have a relatively new
battery and have done the GM alternator swap recently so I think my charging
system is ok. However, if I leave the car sitting for over a week, the
battery will go dead. I have a battery cutoff switch and it seems that if I
cut off the battery, I can leave it for over a week and the battery won't
drain (still testing this).
>
> I'm a little week on theory here, but if I cut off my battery and then
apply my mulitmeter between the negative post and ground it reads about 12
volts. I would think that this reading should be zero. If this is correct
then I should be able to go around disconnecting things looking for
something that will change that voltage to zero. Can someone confirm that
I'm on the right track?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dwayne Cooper
> '74
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