Ok, I have had this problem for quite some time. I have a 1987 GTA with a very annoying and frustrating issue. It seems I have a parasitic drain. With a new, fully charged battery the car will sit for about a week and a half before going completely flatline. I have checked with a multimeter and test light only to find nothing. Also, I don't know if this is related or not, it has issues starting. The starter will always start the car on the first try when it is cold, or when it sits over night. When warm, however, I can turn the key and it will just click sometimes, and other times will literally do nothing. I am thinking maybe a short in the solenoid or something to do with the solenoid.
Let me describe this last symptom better: If I warm the car up to operating temp with the battery completely charged, turn the car off and try to start it again, all dash lights etc... will come on when I turn the ignition on. When I try to start the car though, nothing happens, no click, no nothing. I can turn the headlights on even and they BARELY go dim when trying to start the car. This tells me that it might be the solenoid shorting out or something when it is hot because if power was getting to the starter motor, then there would be more draw...This then could be draining my battery? Any thoughts? I will buy whomever solves my problem a coke!

 

Sounds like you have the problem solved already.

 

Sounds like 2 separate problems.

No, the solenoid is not the source of that.

1. Parasitic drain - check all the lights in the car; underhood light when parked, cargo area light, etc. If all of that is good, try hooking your multimeter up as an ammeter (on "amps" range; disconnect the + batt cable from the batt, + lead to the + terminal of the batt, - lead to the batt cable) and see how much power the car is drawing; should be in the low 10s of milliamps (like 20-40 mA max, and probably down nearer 10mA). If it's more than that, remove fuses one at a time, and see if it changes. (not every circuit in the car, has a fuse; so that's no guarantee that everthing is OK) If that is about right, you may have an intermittent of some sort. Those can be EXTREMELY difficult to track down. As an example, a friend of mine bought a new Vette in 85. He lived and worked within a block or 2 of his house; so he rode his bike alot in the summer, and the car would sit sometimes for a week or more between uses. It would be dead as a doorknob. The dealer (surprise!!) couldn't find the problem (not that there's anything necessarily wrong with dealers; just, they're not always the right venue for getting this sort of thing fixed). He did as I just described; saw nothing; walked off and left it like that, to answer the phone or get a beer or something; when he came back, just sort of out of the corner of his eye, he say the pointer of his meter (Simpson 260) SLAM over to the right, stay there for about 2 seconds, then drop back down to zero. He freaked needless to say. So he sat there and watched it; turned out, about every 15 or 20 minutes, it would do that. He eventually got a service manual for the car, and one at a time, disconnected EVERY circuit in the car, one at a time (and of course, waited a half hour or more on each one!!), until he found the culprit. Turned out to be the power seat. When he inspected the harness, he found the power feed wire to it, which is hooked up to raw battery inthat car and has no fuse but instead has a circuit breaker, was chafed; and what it was doing was the breaker would reset, it would draw VER high current for a couple of seconds, and pop the breaker; then it would automatically reset again after a while, and just keep doing that. He never noticed that the seat wasn't working because he had put it where he wanted it and just left it there. A good bad example of how much of a PITA those can be.

2 - What's the voltage at the solenoid terminal of the starter when it's doing the no-start thing?

 

Sofakingdom, I will check the voltage @ solenoid

 

Don't I connect the meter in series with the negative post and cable?

 

You can hook it up at either terminal; doesn't matter. Results will be the same. Current has to flow through the complete circuit, so you can use either one.

 

Ok Sofakingdom, my meter has the following amp settings: 200u, 2000u, 20m, 200m, and 10A; Which setting should I use and what kind of draw should I see while testing for parasitic drain? Thanks sorry if this is a dumb question-I am not too electrically inclined!

 

Start on the highest range (10A); switch to lower ranges until you see something.

You shouldn't have to go lower than the 20 mA range. You should see something probably around 8 - 15 mA, if all is well. Maybe more if something isn't.