OK, I need the wisdom of the group here . . .

My wife takes the Vanagon on it's normal daily outting, school, stores, etc. Along the way she stops the Vanagon about 4 different times for about 20 -40 min each time. At the last stop, boom, dead battery, won't crank but maybe once (battery is less than 3 years old), she calls me I think OK, batteries sometimes go dead quck, so I pick up a new one and drive it over to her, install it and it starts fine. She hasn't noticed anything different all morning, no warning lights, no smoke, no funny noises. Off she goes, off I go back to work, 30 min later shes calls me and the one time she turned off the engine (for less than 5 min) boom, dead battery.  

We pop the clutch and it starts so now it sits in the garage, still won't crank.  I've looked over the van and can't see anything obvious, but I'm not sure where to look. It happened so fast it has to be something simple, what could short out/kill a battery so fast?  Where do I start looking?

Need the groups help on this

Thanks

Dave
86 Vanagon GL

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