ok, so recently my 87 IROC has been giving me some problems. it is not starting and my battery guage is reading no charge. so, my battery is dead but something is draining it and i dont know what. over the weekend i charged the batt and the guage was reading up to 13 and the max is 18, the car ran fine up until yesterday when it was weak and eventually would not start. i have a brand new alternator so that cant be the problem. what could it be?

 

Sounds like a parasitic draw on the battery. disconnect the negative battery terminal. Make sure door is shut or better yet remove bulbs from dome lamp and any interior lamps that illuminate when door or hood is opened. Hook a test light up in series of the ground side, ie: aligator clip of light on battery terminal and probe of light on battery with terminal still disconnected. Does the the test light illuminate brightly? If it does you have a draw on the battery. To isolate the problem circuit, leave test light hooked up and remove fuses one at a time until the light goes out. Once light is out you have isolated the circuit that is drawing on the battery. find ALL components powered by that circuit and with fuse plugged back in unplug and plug each component on the problem circuit one at time until the light goes back out. The most common draw I have found is underhood lights that don't shut off when hood is closed. I once found a draw a co-worker tore a whole car apart by simply shutting off a map light. I helps to listen for anything running all the time with key off also, such as automatic trunk closers, power door locks, power antenna, etc.
Good luck, hope this helps.

 

ya i was told there may be a draw in the batt and im going to try this tomorow or as soon as i have time. thanks for the instructions and i hope i find out the problem, if not ill be back to post or i might have to go to my last resort and take it to a mechanic and i dont like other people touching my car.
ill be sure to reply if it does work out good too.
thanks