I have an electrical problem with a 1985 Fiero base coupe - 2.5L engine and Auto transmission. The car will not start or turn over. Something is draining the battery but I have no idea what.
- The battery positive ground was tested and it is reading 15 ohms of resistance.
- Alternator was pulled and tested = Passed
- Checked all the fuses on the inside of the car and they checked OK (is there any other fuses hiding somewhere else?)
- Starter wire was checked and nothing was wrong with that.

I've looked everywhere for any kind of wire that could be burnt or grounded somewhere it isn't supposed to be but haven't found anything. Is there any common problems with the '85 that could cause this?
Is there any tests that could be done to single out a wire? If I've let anything out, let me know.
Thanks for the help!

How are you measuring this 15 ohms of resitance? disconnecting one battery cable and checking the resitance between them...? if you did that...15 ohms would be about right for your trunk light, or interior light, if you had the door open at the time. Make sure neither of those is going to mess up your measurement, however you're going about testing it.

Sphynx,

You did not mention if you tested the battery voltage or not. You did mentioned the battery is draining, over what period of time? The cause could the headlight motors not shutting down, trunk light not going off (broken switch), etc. If the battery voltage is good, the possibilities could include: transmission selector switch, starter solenoid, fusable link, etc. This would include bad ground.

Just a suggestion of possible causes.

The battery was charged and within a few minutes, the battery was completely drained. There's SOMETHING draining the battery but I'm not sure what it is. (Not the alternator)
I hooked it up to a portable charger to try that but it wouldn't start.

For what it is worth, I helped Sphynx yesterday looking for the problem. We measured 18 ohmns across the negitive and positive cables with no battery installed. Is this normal? I thought that it was not. Pehaps I am wrong. Anyway, I do think something is draining the battery but the battery we had did not have a charge to it and after trying to charge it for 3 hours + the charger was still at the 15 amp level (the higest setting), it was very warm and the battery was starting to leak a little water out of the top. Not sure about the battery quality.

Sphynx.... You said that when you put a new (or charged) battery in it, the lights were still dim?

The battery draining in a couple of minutes indicates a significant short or the like.

I was wondering if you guys pulled all the fuses to see if that would eliminate the problem. Are any of your fusible links warm when for what little time the battery is charged?

Just guessing here, but would be the places I would check.

Good luck.

When I put the new or charged battery in, the trunk lights and map lights were bright and then they started to fade.

I had a similar problem. I also removed the alternator and it had originally passed when taken to the local AutoZone. I had checked everything including changing out the positive cable and replacing broken or missing grounding straps. What finally fixed my issue was to actually replace the alternator. I know it doesn't make sense, but, it's what finally fixed my issue.

May I suggest disconnecting the wires from the alternator and see if you still have an issue with battery drain. If you do, you know the alternator or more appropriately, the voltage regulator located therein, is not the issue.

For the battery to drain that fast, you would see a huge arc from the battery to the ground cable when you hook it up. It is normal to have a very small arc when hooking up the ground. If you are not seeing a large arc when hooking up the battery then I would suspect the battery having an internal ground. Have you had the battery checked?

Joe Sokol

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85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC build underway
88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)

If you are only seeing 15 Ohms to ground from the positive battery cable with everything off and closed, you have a serious drain somewhere and you need to find it... when the car is off it should only draw about 50mA... to power the ECM, radio clock etc... thats like 0.6 Watts. If you are reading only 15 Ohms, thats going to pull 800mA or dissapate about 9.6 Watts. While thats nothing like a dead short, it is still is about half of what a good 2 Amp slow battery charger would be.

Start pulling fuses and checking for current draw by putting an ammeter between the fuse contacts, thats the easiest way to do it.