Honda Electrical Drain

[Richard Hayden]

PLZ Help. My 87 Honda Accord has a short somewhere & is draining my battery. I have nothing visable left on. Is there a way of detecting where a short is coming from? I'm stumped. TYVM. Richard Hayden.

[shorod]

Welcome to the forum!

One way to start this investigation would be to pull fuses one at a time to see which circuit causes the short to go away. That will at least narrow it down to a circuit, then you'll need a wiring diagram to see what all items are on that circuit.

Another suggestion would be to search the Accord forum to see if there are common electrical drains specific to your vehicle. If the search doesn't turn up something, then feel free to start a new thread with your question.

One common question that will come us is if you have an aftermarket stereo or security/remote start system. Also, any other non-factory installed electronics?

-Rod

[curtis73]

shorod has it pegged.

As someone who has done this many times before, a little step-by-step might help.

Find youself a test light. Test it between the terminals of the battery so you know how bright its supposed to be. Now pull the negative cable off the battery and connect the test light between the cable and the post. If you have a significant drain, the light should be as bright as it gets. Now, start pulling and reinstaling fuses one by one. If you pull one and the light goes really dim, you've found your culprit, or at least narrowed it down. For instance, if you find the light goes dim when you pull the fuse labeled "trnk lt, cig ltr, glv box lt" then you know either your trunk light or glove box light is on. From there you can start diagnosing drains by pulling the wires for each individual component on the circuit you found the drain.

With a little common sense and careful reasoning, its pretty easy to find it.

[ponchonutty]

curtis has it right. To clear it up a bit the test light (most of them anyways) will have one end with a clip and the other with pointed end. One end of the test light will be hooked to say the neg. terminal of the battery and the other to the negitive cable while that cable is unhooked from the battery. Then you can see if the light lights up. If it does, take a small piece of wire and temporaly connect one end to the battery and the other to the neg. terminal for a little while. Some vehicles have to get their BCM to boot for a while and others have other electricals that have to go through checks. Well, on some if you don't let them do this, it'll show a draw becuase the testlight will be lit up then once the electricals are done the light will go out.

[inafogg]

make sure you remove hood lamp bulb that lights up when you open the hood this will give you a 12V drawl & doors are shut key off/out ect.

[curtis73]

Oh... and put a piece of tape over the door pin because the dome lights might add confusion.

[shorod]

On your Honda you can probably turn the dome light to the "Off" position (from the "Door" position) to make this easier.

-Rod

[Richard Hayden]

To ALL that replyed to my HONDA Electrical Drain question: THANK YOU.

[inafogg]

welcome rich,did you find/fix the problem??if so let us no what the fix was.

[ponchonutty]

Yeah, chime in to let us know what you find out???