Battery drain issues

Hello, I'm new to contour.org. I have a 98 contour gl. Recently I replaced the timing belt on it. After getting everything back together I test drove the car at night and within a couple hundred yards the headlight went dim. I got back home and looked up in my Haynes manual about battery drains. It took me through a procedure of disconnecting the negative battery cable and putting a test light between that and the neg post. If the light comes on there is a definate drain. The test light came on. It then told me to disc. the alternator cables and if the light went out it was the alternator. The light stayed on so I started pulling fuses until I came to #35. This caused the light to go out. It was for the Right side lights. I looked at the light sockets front and rear and they appeared to be good. Ihad to wait a few days before getting back to the job. Now when I pull the fuse the test light stays on.

When putting the timing belt covers back on I noticed a black wire that comes from the back of the engine bay on the passenger side but I'm not sure where it connects to. I'm assuming it goes to something and acts as a ground. My first thought was that it connects to the engine block at the hoist eyelet. Can anyone confirm this and does anyone have anymore suggestions for the other electrical issues? Is it possible that the are realted? thanks for the help in advance. fitzy67

update on battery drain

update on battery drain

I was out tonight and found that fuse#34 (interior lighting and digital clock) caused the test light to dim significantly but not go completely out. What should I check next?

did you ever ground the black wire and retest?? sounds to me like that might be the issue especially if it just started after working on the car...

fitzy67 said:

until I came to #35. This caused the light to go out. It was for the Right side lights. I looked at the light sockets front and rear and they appeared to be good. Ihad to wait a few days before getting back to the job. Now when I pull the fuse the test light stays on.

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Try pulling fuse #8 in the engine bay. This will kill everything upstream of fuse #35. Test for drain and report back...

fitzy67 said:

When putting the timing belt covers back on I noticed a black wire that comes from the back of the engine bay on the passenger side but I'm not sure where it connects to. I'm assuming it goes to something and acts as a ground. My first thought was that it connects to the engine block at the hoist eyelet. Can anyone confirm this and does anyone have anymore suggestions for the other electrical issues? Is it possible that the are realted? thanks for the help in advance. fitzy67

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tape this wire up so it doesn't short anything out. We'll come back to this later... G.

battery drain

battery drain

No longer is fuse 35 the issue, now fuse 34 causes the test light to go out. I will pull #8 in the AM and also tape up the mysterious ground wire. thanks. fitzy67

OK this is something on the interior lighting. This could be the 'trunk light not going off... or it could be the Visor vanity light. You need to go through all your interior lights removing the bulbs one by one to see which one makes the test light go out... LMK...G.

interior/trunk lights

interior/trunk lights

I checked the interior lights and they seem to be good. The wires are intact and the sockets look good too. The trunk doesn't have a light. This is a GL. There is an after market CD changer installed that has never worked though. I don't know anything about the installation or the equipment though.

I tried posting some pics of the ground wire and another that connects through the valve cover to a plug on the head between the camshafts. The insulation on the wires going to the plug was cracked and damaged. I could not get the pics to load because the jpg files are too large for this website.

Battery Drain

Battery Drain

While you are pulling the fuses trying to find the drain is the hood open? I know the answer is most likely yes. Make sure that the hood light switch is clamped down so that it does not allow the engine comp. light to work. Found this out the hard way. Dan

battery drain no longer

battery drain no longer

I was out looking for fuse#8 on Saturday and found out that according to the Haynes it goes to the foglights. My car doesn't have fog lights and the spot where the fuse would go is empty. I did see that spot 5 was empty and that it looked like a fuse should be there. I put the right size in and also disconnected the after market CD changer. I'm not really sure what I did but I know longer have a battery drain. According to Haynes if the test light is on when connected between the neg post and the neg cable there should be no light. This is only if the clock and the radio are disconnected though. These both drain the battery constantly keeping the light lit. I did the same procedure with my 2000 Ford Expy and my wifes Chevy Cobalt. They both had lit test lights between neg post and cable. I have been out driving the car all over the past few days with not problems. The only thing I can say that caused the first drain on the battery was that before I reallized the Tbelt was broke I had tried many times to start the engine and had run the battery down so much that the alternator wasn't able to charge it. Once I charged the battery enough everything worked great. Well sorry about ramgling on. I hope something I said will help someone else. Moral of the story is make sure the battery is in good condition before trying to diagnose electrical problems.

Does the wire have a plugin type connector or is it a bare wire? How far down will it reach. One thing you might check still is the alternator. There are 3 connections to the alt. The battery cable, the multi-plug and a single wire plug.
Make sure it's not the single wire plug.

black mystery wire

black mystery wire

The wire is about 12-16 inches long. It could reach to the altenator but it has a round eyelet on the end so it gets bolted to something. I currently have it bolted to the engine hoist eylet and am not having any problems. I've been driving it back and forth to work with no issues but I would like to find out where it really goes.

Pugulis said:

Does the wire have a plugin type connector or is it a bare wire? How far down will it reach. One thing you might check still is the alternator. There are 3 connections to the alt. The battery cable, the multi-plug and a single wire plug.
Make sure it's not the single wire plug.

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drop in volts

drop in volts

I put my voltmeter on the battery with the car running and had 14.58 volts. with the car off it dropped to 12 initially but was down to 10 in about half and hour. Does this mean the battery is bad or something else?