Re: battery drain off (short)

Posted by Ray C on August 27, 1998 at 13:14:40

In Reply to: battery drain off (short)
posted by Bob O on August 27, 1998 at 11:50:11

Hi Bob, Finding an electrical drain can be done by measuring for current flow through one circuit at time or by trying the car with one circuit eliminated at a time.On the Model A, the key is the terminal box on the firewall.Take the cover off and you will see that one side has two yellow wires and the other has(or should have) 5 wires.One yellow wire with a black tracer is the feed to that side of the terminal.Locate it. You should be able to do so by sight since this wire goes into the car.Leaving this wire on, you take off each of the others and see if the problem goes away or if everything is shut off and you get a spark from one wire that is the problem wire. A slow drain may not produce a spark so if you have no measuring instrument, you may have to take a few nights to find the bad circuit.If the black wire is bad, it goes to the coil which should be isolated by the ignition switch being off. Put the black wire back on and take the red wire off the other side of the coil. If you have the problem back, it is the coil or the black wire.There is a black wire with a blue tracer on the terminal. If it looks like the culprit, it goes to the windshield wiper.Then there is the big Daddy which is a second yellow wire with black tracer. It goes to the generator, the light switch, the horn and the stop light switch. It services other circuits but they are dead when the light switch is off.If your test at the terminal produced no results, the ammeter and dash light are in the feed circuit to the terminal. Inspect them closely.The light switch is the most suspect followed by the pop out if so equipped.This is a long message but think of how many circuits you would have to monkey with in a new car.
Good huntingRay

: A friend of mine has a 1929 sedan.If battery is not disconected after use battery it is dead in morning.Any ideas?