Power drain on 79 T/A

I'm trying to help a friend find out what is draining the power from the battery when the car is sitting in the garage. The car runs, but when just sitting around, the battery gets drained and refuses to take a charge from a battery charger. The charger indicates that the battery is bad.

Things that have been checked or replaced:

Alternator: Tested good
Starter: Tested good, also replaced with a second starter.
Battery: Changed

All with the same results--> Dead battery

Even went through the fuse block and yanked all of the fuses, still resulting in a power drain on the battery.

The car started life as a Olds 403 / TH350, but now is a PMD 400 / TH400, so I'm guessing the problem is somewhere in the engine compartment because of the engine swap, not the interior of the car or the headlamp/taillamp/brake light system.

Although maybe a shorted switch somewhere? But I would think that removing the fuses would eliminate that from being a problem.

Could it be possible that something in the distributor may be bad even though the car will run?

I would think a short somewhere along the line. Not sure of the setup used, you might have a solenoid that went bad, but I am not sure of the setup. If you have removed all of the fuzes I would look into something like that. Reason I say this, is I had a buddy witht the same problem, but different vehicle. Hope this helps, let us know how things go

I'm trying to help a friend find out what is draining the power from the battery when the car is sitting in the garage. The car runs, but when just sitting around, the battery gets drained and refuses to take a charge from a battery charger. The charger indicates that the battery is bad.

Things that have been checked or replaced:

Alternator: Tested good
Starter: Tested good, also replaced with a second starter.
Battery: Changed

All with the same results--> Dead battery

Even went through the fuse block and yanked all of the fuses, still resulting in a power drain on the battery.

The car started life as a Olds 403 / TH350, but now is a PMD 400 / TH400, so I'm guessing the problem is somewhere in the engine compartment because of the engine swap, not the interior of the car or the headlamp/taillamp/brake light system.

Although maybe a shorted switch somewhere? But I would think that removing the fuses would eliminate that from being a problem.

Could it be possible that something in the distributor may be bad even though the car will run?


check for a light in the glove box and trunk, staying on after those are closed....

Looks like this is going to become a challenge to find this bugger.

Thanks for the suggestions!