F-Body Europe

I was wondering - what's the best way of locating a short in a car?

Here's the background - after putting the battery back in the 'maro for TÃœV inspection, I noticed it would run it down pretty quickly - before, removing the fuse for the alarm system would keep the battery fine, otherwise the alarm would run down the battery after about 5 weeks or so to the point where the car would hardly start anymore.

When I was working on the car, I put the charger on and noticed that it blew the fuse of the charger (20A fuse! I hadn't removed the cables from the battery). So I removed the cables, charged the battery.

For the trip down to Geiselwind, I had charged the battery again the day before, dropped it in for the trip, but didn't disconnect it down there. After just 4 1/2 hours, it was completely run down, started once, but pretty much dead an hour later. Wisely, I had put a jumper cable in the trunk Anyway, after almost two hours trip home, I pulled the car into the workshop, turned if off, it didn't even have enough power in the battery for a single restart. WTF? Something is sucking literally every milliamp out of the battery and alternator (alternator/voltage reading during motor running is around 13-14V mark ...)

I was planning on pulling all the fuses on the car (driver side door, and I think there's another fuse fox in the motor area, right?), then measure each one's throughput and see how much is going through it. That should reduce the possibilities quite a bit ... anyway, I've not found anything that's not working, I would imagine a short drawing that many amps should have some side effects apart from draining the battery!?

I would check the battery first for it being any good. Voltage amp draw test is the best.
Second is check the terminal connections to the battery to include pulling the rubber shields back to check for corrosion.

Battery was fully charged, terminals were screwed on tight, volt meter on the car read around 12.x volts when I put the battery in yesterday morning ... charging the battery again now, will see tomorrow evening what it looks like ... terminals didn't show any signs of corrosion though ... also, corrosion would explain the extended draw while charging the battery in the car ... !?

If the battery has been run down several times, then it can go bad. It may not be holding a charge any more.

This is true , plates can sulfate and inhibit the chemical reaction within the battery, or the sulfate can sluff off and internally short the battery.

Also the battery volt/amp draw test can be done on your car Garry. Just pull the inj and ign fuses and crank the engine over for 15 secs.
Here is the procedure from a car site

If it drops below min or is at min voltage it is a candidate for replacement.
For me if it drops below 10 vdc it will let you down.

After charging it again yesterday afternoon (charger amps showed 1A current afterwards), I hooked up the charger again this morning, it went all the way up to 9A and stayed there for a minute -- guess it probably is the battery after all ... voltmeter showed 11V when I left, will check it out tonight, if it's not there then (w/o any load on it), I guess I will have to put the Hawk battery in the car for Wednesday ... If not, I'll do the test you posted, Roy ...

Well, looks like it's the battery after all ... voltage went down .2V from this morning, without anything hooked up ... I put in the Hawk's battery and brought the Maro home ... clean it up some tomorrow - if the battery is still fine tomorrow morning, everything is fine so far for the electric system of the car ... just need to pick up a new battery ...