Ever since putting the top end of my engine back together, I have had a 140ma parasitic drain on my battery. The alternator tested good, but my battery had a dead cell so I now have a brand new Duralast Gold battery, and still a drain. I've pulled every fuse in the truck..twice. I got 176 ohms between the positive and negative main cables which as I understand rules out a major short.

The only way I have gotten the drain to stop is by disconnecting the main positive lead from the under hood fuse block. I went as far as unscrewing the fuse block and disconnecting every harness underneath it with no change to the drain reading. Today I had the upper intake off, and noticed a wire connector on the screw holding the driver's side spark wire bracket on the manifold. Does anyone know what, if anything is supposed to be connected to that lead? If not, any suggestions on the problem in general?

 

What about the bolt in fuses?

 

The ones with the torx screws? I've pulled those too unfortunately. I've also disconnected the alternator ground wire, hot wire, and both to no effect. I've looked around for any shorted wires, and the only damaged one has been spliced and repaired (tach signal from alternator).

Actually, if anyone would be kind enough to feel behind their driver's side spark wire bracket on the manifold, and see if there is in fact anything grounded to it it would be greatly appreciated. Also, Buzz I really appreciate you always chiming in to help me out.

 

Maybe pull relays one by one, in case one is stuck "on" ?

Starter wire? It does not have a fuse.... maybe some road kill on the underside

 

Nothin from the relays or the starter wire. I'm beginning to think the Rover has finally won and I'm gonna have to take it to a shop....

 

Perhaps the drain is a combination of several fuses? One guy had a sub amp that was staying on.

 

The combination of fuses idea got me rethinking my approach, so I pulled all the fuses and relays under the hood at once then watched what happened when I put them back in. I've now got it narrowed down to fuses 12 and 13, as well as fusible link 1 which are for the transmission, BCU, and alternator respectively. Now to see if I can figure it out from the RAVE diagrams.....

EDIT: Drain on the circuit of fuse 20 from the passenger box as well