With this drain I have again learned  "never trust anything, and check ALL
branches of a circuit".  Hammered into my head enough times in tech schools
was "just because it works, doesn�t mean it is correctly operating"
jimt

On 5/10/05 8:36 PM, "Loren Busch" <starwagen@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> RE: Battery Drain
> I can almost beat that Jim (but not quite)
> After the engine was replaced in my '85 the battery would go dead
> overnight, but it was intermittent.
> One item kept popping from the back of my mind.  When I got the van
> back from the shop that did the work, which included a new radiator,
> the heat control was all the way to the left.  I knew this could be a
> problem with the heater since I had a bent heater control cable.  I
> dealt with the problem by disconnecting the battery if I was going to
> be parked overnight.  I was suspecting something shorting under the
> dash, pushed around by the heater cable.  On the night that I totaled
> the '85, the battery had been fine for a week or two, no drain.  (I
> could hear a relay click under the drivers seat when connecting the
> battery if the short was there).  That night I had to turn on the
> heater and pulled the battery for the event I was at.  When I
> connected it to leave, 'click', the short was there.
> Ah ha, suspicions confirmed, now I know where to look under the dash
> for the short, right around the area that the heater control cable
> passed.  But, the Westy was totalled on the way home.  So I never had
> the pleasure of looking for the problem and saying 'Eureka! I found
> it!'