Nero Dillinger

Still working on getting this '84 up to snuff. The biggest problem I'm running into at the moment is a parasitic amp draw somewhere. I hooked up my multimeter, and it's saying I've got a 80ma draw somewhere. Not huge, I know, but it's enough to whittle away my battery pretty regularly, especially since it's not drive-time yet. And from what I understand, 50ma and below is the magic number for draw.

I've pulled all my fuses one at a time; the cigar lighter circuit and the wiper(s) circuit both seem to have a slight draw, but even with both fuses pulled my amp draw is still at roughly 76ma.

I'm kinda stumped at this point. There's not a second fuse box on the '84 gsl-se that I don't know about, is there?

Any advice you pros could pass along would be greatly appreciated.

Nero Dillinger

A buddy at work suggested I get the alternator tested, said they can sometimes cause amp draws. I took it in and got it tested, but no luck. The alternator's fine.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

misterstyx69

iTrader: (142)

An alternator Produces current,and the only way I can think that it would draw current is if the regulator was screwed,drawing current when the car is off.Highly unlikely though.
Now,you have to keep checking your circuits.put the meter on between the battery and the positive cable(on Amps) and test for draw by pulling the fuses one at a time.
It could be anything from a bare wire touching,something left on, to a stuck door switch.
This is the thing with Parasitic draw and that is why they call it that,Because it bugs the crap out of you!

Nero Dillinger

Cool, thanks for the advice!

I hooked a multimeter up between the battery post and the cable and pulled each fuse one at a time. There was a slight dip in amp draw (like 2 mA) on the cigar lighter circuit and the wiper circuits, but nothing else.

Nero Dillinger

I think I may have figured it out! Sort of.

I had the alternator tested like my friend suggested, and it was fine. However, another friend suggested I hook the multimeter up and check for an amp draw without the alternator in, so I tried it. Sure enough, the 80 mA draw was down to 15 mA!

Going through some of the FAQs on the page, I think I'm starting to understand what happened. I'm thinking the guy who had this thing before me maybe tried to swap out the original 60A alternator for something with more amps. Looking at pictures of the original 60A online, I'm almost sure it's different.

And according to some of the comments on the posts, incorrect wiring of a newer series alternator can result in an amp draw.

So if I'm right, now I just need to figure out what amp of alternator I've actually got, and then figure out how the hell to wire it up correctly.

Piece of cake, right?

Here's what my alt looks like. Look familiar to anyone?