Strange electrical gremlin

tbm3fan

Old Man with a Hat
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Jan 22, 2012
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Pleasant Hill, CA
I have had my car since 2009 and have never killed the battery. Well last night I was putting on the air cleaner after painting it. I opened the door for the remote hood release, closed it, turned around and then turned back when I said to myself why didn't the interior lights go on? Opened the door to check and nothing worked the battery was drained. Oh hell now I have to charge it as I thought I must have left the dome light on somehow.

So today I also stopped by the auto parts store to get some #90 bulbs for the interior courtesy lights under the dash. One had a bulb and the other didn't. So first I connected the battery to see if the lights worked and they did. Closed the door and they didn't go off. WTF? So I check all doors and the little trigger switches to make sure they were smoothly working. They were fine. Hmm? Light switch is in correct position. Well don't tell me I have to connect and disconnect the battery when running the car? What is going on?

Ok, let's just put the new bulb in on the passenger side and I do. Nice and bright. I close the door and all lights go off??? Open and close again and they go off. Now I know what happened. Over the weekend the bulb holder had been hanging since 2009. After putting the carpet back in I saw that and it reminded me to screw it into place which I did. Had no bulb so I left it. Apparently that was the source for grounding the battery. I went back in, took out the new bulb, and the lights once again wouldn't go out when the door closed. So I guess without a bulb in those sockets one has a direct way to drain their battery like I did right into the dash.
 
It's little things like that which drive you mad. I had something similar to that happen to me with another car I owned....kept draining the damn batt until I figured out (by accident almost) what was going on.
 
It's little things like that which drive you mad. I had something similar to that happen to me with another car I owned....kept draining the damn batt until I figured out (by accident almost) what was going on.

Gary, did you get the dimming headlights figured out yet?
 
Gary, did you get the dimming headlights figured out yet?

No, she's sitting in the garage waiting for it. I removed the grill, bumpers and other stuff to repaint...got some argent silver from Eastwood for some of the trim work...figured since I'm there chasing down a short I might as well repaint some stuff that was getting worn out. You start out to do one thing and end up do a hundred other things on top of that.
 
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