ok heres the deal...
over the last few days my battery keeps dying overnight
(not cmpletely dead ...but just to a point where the starter cant crank anymore....)

I had the battery recharged and checked out - turns out OK


when i remove the battery out of the car and run a multimeter through the battery terminals and measure resistance...
it shows 1ohm ....meaning a complete short... is that correct??
(then i tried removing one fuse at a time...)
when i came up to the accesory fuse...the resistance went up to 20K ohms....

whats going on here...whats the correct resistance got to be...???

any idea;s whats goign on here guys ...i need some serious help here..

thanx

Ohh BTW the alarm doesnt make a difference in the short wwther i disconnect it or not...(the whole harness)

 

Don't check resistance. First, what's the battery voltage? 12.6V is fully charged. 12.4V is 75% charged and so on.

Second, you need to do a Parasitic Drain Test. Disconnect your negative battery cable and put an ammeter in series with the negative cable and the negative battery terminal. MAKE SURE ALL LIGHTS ARE OFF. DO NOT TURN HEADLIGHTS ON OR YOUR METER FUSE WILL BLOW. Let the meter sit for about 20-30 minutes and then check the reading. You shouldn't have more than around 50 mA. If you do, there is a problem.

Solving the problem (if there is one). Check for any lights that are on but shouldn't be on. Start pulling fuses one by one and see if the Amp reading goes down. Also, I have seen a bad alternator drain a battery overnight......

 

Another way of checking each individual cell is to use your voltmeter. Put
one lead to the + or - and then stick the other in the holes where the acid
is. Count how many caps you have and divide that by the total of your
battery. Ex. a 12 volt battery may have four caps. then there are three
volts per cell.

Lets say you have the black lead of the volt meter to the negative post of
the battery. Then you put the red lead into the first cell and it reads 3
volts, that means that cell is good. Then the next cell reads 3 volts/good.
The next cell reads 1.3 volts and that one would be bad.
If you wanted to check to see if the last cell is bad then put the red lead
on the positive, and put the black lead into the acid and see what that
reads.

If all cells add up to the total voltage of the battery, then the battery is
all good.

I admit this is a simple test, and it still does not put a load on the
battery, but it lets you find a bad cell.

 

His battery will have 6 cells. 2.1V per cell. And it wont work with a maintainence-free batt.

 

89camaroRSV6
If the resistance is 1 ohm, then the current supplied is voltage divided by resistance which is 12/1 = 12 Amps! Bit much! Hope it wasn't that! The shear fact that it dropped to 20 000 ohms when the acc fuse was removed means you have a problem in that circuit. Although doing the calicamaroRS's parasitic test is an excellent idea.

Check and disconnect all things controlled by the ACC fuse one at a time.

Andy.

 

Yeah, but didn't he check the resistance with the battery out of the car??? So there's nothing hooked up to draw 12 amps? Or did I miss something?

EDIT: Ok i re-read it. He checked resistance through the cables. I agree with andy. Check all accessories. It's probably the cigarette lighter.

Here's what's on the ACC fuse:

-Horn relay
-hood light
-hatch release relay
-dome light
-map lights
-cigar lighter
-side mirror switch
-power door locks
-delco amplifier relay

 

The 1 ohm reading is a misleading measurement. If there is a big amplifier in the car's audio system or a bunch of other things it will read as a low resistance when you measure right across the battery leads.

The Parasitic Drain Test (sounds more technical than it really is!) is the best way to systematically determine what's going on.

Seeing as the trouble disappeared when the ACC fuse was blown, I would look at the devices running on it. Could an amplifier be wired up to be turned on all the time? An interior light staying on or cigarette lighter half-inserted?

If you don't have an ammeter to work with, get your hands on a 194 light bulb as used in our corner/tail lights. Spread the little wire terminals away from the bulb and wrap a stripped length of thin insulated wire to each one, connect the bulb in series with the battery's + terminal and the + battery cable. It should light up with the problem that you're experiencing.

If you poke around the wiring you will see the light go out when you find the problem.

 

Firstly thanx a lot guys for ur replys

to make things more clear..
1. hatch relay has a different fuse ..i already removed that one..my hatch lift motor doesnt work...

2. I dont have a horn / horn relay..they are not wired...

3. All the lights are off when i take the readings
even the doors are closed....

actually when i meant 1 ohm i meant there was close to no resuistance on the wire..completely closed..

yeah the reading were with the battery off the car...

is the 15K-20K even correct or is there some other short too???ACC fuse removed it reads 15K...20K

if it was a short wouldnt the fuse blow when i connect the battery ...in my case fuse doenst blow ..as a matter of fact everything seems to work fine... ...

im going to do that parasite test tommorow...could it be some relay is stuck closed???..

could some one please list what else is connected to the accesory fuse apart from the interior lights, cigarette lighter

ohh my amp along with the stereo has been disconnected and still has teh problem...


EDIT:
i checked something out
. alternator wires removed the problem still exists....

 

sorry man I ws gonna test my car today for ya, but I broke a toe this mourning. Just call me gimpy for a while...

 

Rustydawg, I don't think the presence of an audio amplifier would affect anything. Since the radio was off, the audio amp should be off (via the amp's remote turn-on lead that is controlled by getting +12 volts from the head unit).

Have you tried letting the car sit overnight with the ACC fuse unhooked? If the battery starts the car up nice and strong next morning, sounds like it's definately the ACC circuit. Got an automatic hatch pulldown on that car? Does it still pull the hatch down? I wonder if the common "hatch motor death" happened- plastic gear stripped out, and your hatch pull-down motor is spinning and spinning and spinning itself (and your battery) to death.

Do you guys actually have a fuse labeled ACC? My '86 doesn't, it has a "CTSY" fuse (courtesy), that runs the same things (radio memory, cigar lighter, courtesy/dome/reading/glovebox/hatchwell lights, horn relay, antenna relay). My '86 has a separate fuse for the hatch pulldown, but I wonder if it was integrated into ACC for later model years.

 

I agree - provided the wiring concerning the amp and the turn on lead is all good and nobody has bridged continuous battery power to the amp's turn-on input or something similar. That was my point. These things happen.

 

yeah about my stereo tomp is right ..the amp is hooked to the remote power on lead...

the + and - go straight to the battery..but the reote lead goes to the strereo...

one more funny thing i discovered ...i went out and checked the resistance again..(im still waiting to get a ammmeter...) it was okay...(with the acc fuse disconnected...) (infinite resistance)
then as soon as i connected the acc fuse it shot back to 0 resisitance - full short)
then i removed the acc fuse and its back to that 20K...

im going crazy here...

the hatch motor has a different fuse whichj is already out of my car about 3 months ago the hatch motor died couldnty go up / down so i had to bring it to a point where the hatch would close and remove the fuse....

im gonna go and open the kick panels to see if any of the power door wirings ..are shoerted...

I have power door locks but not power windows..
and i dont have a CTY fuse...the interior lights go out when i remove the ACC fuse

will the bulb test work the same way as the ammmeter..???

 

You betcha. Wire the bulb in between the batt (+) and the (+) battery cable, if you have a short in the wiring the light will come on. The brighter the bulb, the lower the resistance of the short.

Once you get the problem licked the bulb will go out. The usual low-current used by the stereo's clock and the car's computer to retain memory functions won't be enough to light the bulb up.

It's a poor-man's ammeter, and it works better in a way because you can watch the bulb from inside the car more easily than trying to read a meter.

 

ok ... got some more info

i did the bulb test with the accesory fuse out
and the bulb glows and then dims out

im guessing this is because of the amplifiers capacitor

i found that the horn is stuck on all the time
there is voltage in the horn line which means
that the horn relay is stuck on...mabybe bcos of
the steering column shorting the horn ground line

my battery didnt die overnight with the acc fuse REMOVED


DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE HORN RELAY IS
SO THAT I CAN PULL IT OUT...????

 

Look under the dash right behind the ALDL connector. There is a compartment that flips down after releasing the clips on either side. The relay is in there.

 

Nice to see you have almost got this sorted!
Never a very convenient thing when a battery goes flat-always happens when you are in a rush!!

Why did you disconnect the horn originally? Isn't this part of a test that the car has to go through every year? In the UK we have a roadworthiness test every year. Don't you have an equivalent?

Andy.

 

without the horn ....u cant do a driving test in the car
thats all around here ..no one checks if
there is a horn in ur car or not....

when i bought the car the horn was removed
for some reason....wheni looked it turned out
that the switch in the steering was broken
(in such a way that it wasnt making contact
i tried to connect it back ...then it never worked
even if i kept pushing the horn button....)
so i gave up

recently i noticed that it was stayin on all the time
(by hookin up a multimeter...)

i removed the relay after fightting with ti
for a whiler....1 day and the battery has not
died...

its snowing like crazy here in Southern IL
6" over the past 2 days....

 

firstly i want to thank everyone for responding guys

i fixed the problem.....

the steering wheel has a ground point
which supplies the ground to the HORN
and hte horn relay actually has 3 pins....


my steering column horn circuit was shorted to
a point where the horn was on all the time
since i didnt have the horns hooked up i never
noticed it...

but i simply removed the horn relay and it fixed
the problem.....