Hey George, any idea where the ground strap is?
Boy this is an old one. Without looking at the service manual, I don’t know what that little wire is for but that’s not the battery ground cable. There is that cluster of positive cables hooked together under the hood. For the ground, I can’t remember if it grounds to the chassis some place or to another central point where one would go to the starter. At any rate its maybe a ground for a sensor or something but that’s not your leakage problem. Normally there would be a thick cable ground strap in the back of the engine to the chassis just to make sure there is a good ground, but that’s not your problem.
No idea. On most vehicles there’s an array of grounding wires in the engine compartment. There’s a thick wire from the battery negative post to the chassis, somewhere near the battery. Then there is a thick wire from the engine block to the chassis. On my Corolla there are several, one from the engine, one from the transmission, and one from the intake manifold, all connecting to the chassis. There’s often one wire dedicated to sensor grounding, so all the engine compartment sensors get grounded to one location, usually close to where the ECM is grounded. On my Corolla that occurs on the firewall. To see them all you may have to remove stuff, like the battery, the air filter box, the intake air boots, etc.
If one is missing, it might be difficult to figure that out without having another vehicle to compare against. If you have evidence of a grounding problem you can add your own ground wires of course between the engine, transmission, and intake manifold to chassis. Extra ground wires usually wouldn’t cause a problem. Too few is a problem, but too many probably no problem. There has to be at least one very thick ground wire between the engine/transmission area and the chassis for the starter current. That’s over 100 amps so it has to be a very thick wire connected to clean metal.
You’re looking for a thick cable not a little wire, but that’s not your problem anyway, and the ground wires would have been there when the car was running, unless someone was after the copper when the car was parked.
At any rate, one of them is front right corner of the engine. There will be a short ground cable from the engine to the frame. As far as the small wire, you have to look at the connector and color of the wire unless it was just broken. There are small wires in that area that go to things like the radiator level, washer fluid, compressor pressure, etc. That’s not your problem, though.
If I remember right, your problem is a battery going dead too soon. So either a bad battery or a parasitic drain, or not being charged fully by the alternator. You have to put an ammeter or test light on the battery cable and start measuring the load as you pull fuses. Don’t forget you could have had a blower stick on too and would have been reset when the battery was disconnected. Actually blower control modules on these go bad and the blower just keeps running until you pull a fuse.
That appears to be the engine ground cable in the picture in post #14.
1 Like
Yes. The tab it’s supposed to attach to is barely visible, in the space under the large bolt head.
There is a ground cable in that picture that the loose wire is resting on.
1 Like
Yeah, good eyes. That’s the ground cable-engine to frame.
The dangling black wire has a connector on its end. That connector slips over the metal tab that is barely visible in the space under the large bolt head. That black wire is an important ground, maybe for the alternator. I once had a black wire like that break on a 1984 Chevy Cavalier. It was for the alternator.
Thanks Bing, yes, I agree it’s far too small and must ground something else, but it could ground something important (alternator, one of the sensors that deals with air/fuel mixtures), it ends under the intake manifold cover.
The wire is now gone, so I assume it got caught by my serpentine belt which means I have to pull my Intake Man cover to find where it came from (and replace it). I’m going to follow your instructions and run a draw test by pulling my battery cables off, and I’ll report back if it’s over 25 right? Then we can begin finding which component is causing the vampire draw. Thanks again Bing
Agreed, it ends somewhere under the intake manifold cover, so whatever unit begins under my intake manifold cover is the culprit (for this particular unit). My money is on either the alternator, some air/fuel ratio sensor (I forget what it’s called). Thank you
Care to guess what the wire is that’s broken? If it helps, it ends under the intake manifold cover.
Hey Bing,
I know more information will only help you, here are a few things to note; My fuel pump is more “audible” than normal, it isn’t making any noise like a motor who’s bearings are giving out, it simply sounds like it’s working more than normal (not just when you turn the ignition on). Some time ago, I had to replace my drivers side door handle, pulling the door panel and replacing it was awkward, since then, my drivers side power seat and exterior rear view mirrors don’t work, so I may have pinched something in that wire harness or the switch got wet (I left the window open when it rained a few times), lastly, this is new, none of my interior lights work, none of them, not the roof, the door open lamps, nada. I tested the fuses and they are good, but won’t light up my test light, even with the ignition on. Hope it helps
I wish one of the mechanics would chime in that know more than I do, but first, according to the book, to test the draw, you disconnect the negative battery cable, not both of them. Then you connect an ammeter between the battery and the negative cable and see what the draw is. If you have a large draw, then start pulling fuses to see what lowers the draw to isolate which circuit it is. They suggest running the car first to use all of the options but it can take a while then for them to go to sleep normally.
I had a problem with my driver’s door lock switch not locking the doors. I traced it to the orange wire coming from the fuse box under the seat to the switch. Running a temp wire confirmed it so there was an open somewhere. I never could find a good way to run a new wire into the door but suspected the open was somewhere in the rubber boot or just beyond it. I just gave up since I wasn’t using the car anyway and decided to junk it instead of sell it.
So you may have a similar problem with a wire being chaffed with the opening and closing of the door. I guess you have to slice the boot open to take a look but easier said than done.