TomH

Today I went to start the car and the battery was very dead. Since I put in a new stereo the end of last week, I guessed that's the cause. (it rained all day Friday and Saturday, so I didn't use the car.) The way I've always used to check if there is a load on the electric system is by putting the ground cable right over the battery terminal, almost touching. You see little sparks if anything electrical is turned on. If everything is off, no sparks. By process of elimination, I determined that when the stereo memory (+) wire was connected there was a power draw. I connected the memory (+) wire to the single black terminal under the dash, which is correct according the the diagram I found from some stereo site. The stereo was in my other car until about 6 months ago, so I know it's good. Normally, the radio and clock memory draw so little that you can leave a car parked for months without a problem. They also don't make any little sparks when you connect the cable. Can anyone think of anything I might have done wrong, wiring wise? Is there a better method of finding a current drain? Can you tell which fuse is using power?