Hey you guys, I have an 87 Firebird(no rpo codes so I can't figure out all the stock goodies) that has a hellacious drain on the battery and when I say hellacious I mean a four mile trip kills the,headlights, gauges, interior lighting, fan. Everything besides the motor. The kid I bought it off of failed to inform me of these but, no biggie. He did say that the gauges kept popping for "the gauges", he hacked the alternator wiring up soothing good and treated the car like crap. I drove it from rantoul to champaign and by then had completely lost both headlights, all gauges lighting but still had tail lights. The motor kept running because it was carbed. So basically, I'd like to ask(pretty please with a cherry on top) if you guys can make me up a checklist of things to check. Oh and the car is sorta worth the trouble, great floors, rockers, trunk floor and rear wheel wells.it also has pretty good paint, power bulge hood, wrap around wing, power everything, and a good all 305 that runs quite well now.


Sorry for the book, have a nice one and keep it between the ditches, Caleb

 

The first thing at the top of your checklist should be the alternator. That looks to be the culprit to me. Otherwise things should not die off while the vehicle is running. A drain is when power is being sucked while everything is off.

 

Agreed this is the first thing to check. Get a cheap multimeter, and verify 14V at the battery terminals while engine running and lights on. If not, you have a charge problem.

Are you having to recharge the batt every time this happens?

 

Lol, the harness was so hacked and the kid who had it before me was not very intelligent and messed up the wiring hard. It's very difficult to not use expletives when I talk about it, the drain was from a ground touching the positive terminal( please do not ask, the kid will be hunted down for such a mistake) the large gauge wire that runs from the alternator + to the battery + the gauges are all working now, the headlights work awesome, the stereo works( gotta figure out how to wire the aftermarket headunit to the factory amp for the bose system) everything seems to be operating, minus the hatch and gain control( amp isn't wired up) thanks for the help guys. This is my first Firebird but, my second thirdgen. On another note, do you guys know where I could get my rpo codes? If you guys can help me with the amp thing, that'd help tons. I'm gonna do a search first

 

Wow lucky u didn't catch fire, at least no further wiring damage would have been caused.

There is an RPO decoder off the home page: https://www.thirdgen.org/rpodecoder

 

Well, i'm having another problem guys, I have the electric pull down hatch, does anyone know where the button is and what color wires come off of it? Pulled the tpi side of the harness and ecu, much better