98 Ranger 2.3L standard 2wd, 80K miles, bought at auction, unknown history

New Battery goes dead after 1 week of no driving. Current draw is 520mA with door light switches disconnected, key out of ignition. Found hazard light fuse to draw 200 mA all the time. Pulled out, heard click at flasher unit. Pulled GEM fuses (#25 & 26) current draw drops to almost zero. Radio draws 2 mA to keep clock alive.

When battery first connected, power draw jumps to 320 mA and click is heard in lower center of dash. Sounds like a relay. After 10 minutes the draw drops to 160mA and remains. Key is out of ignition and doors are closed.

1. What is drawing current? Truck has factory anti-theft system but if doors are not locked is this in the circuit? Is this a normal current draw? I can live without the door lights and wire the hazards to an ignition hot position. The GEM board looks OK, no arcing or bad solders but of course the IC's could be toast.

2. What might be clicking in the lower dash? All switches are off and pulling the individual fuses on the dash doesn't change the draw except for the GEM fuses. Fuse 26 is the one making the "click".

3. Is the hazard flasher unit supposed to be drawing current all the time? The dash hazard button is off (down position).

Thanks

Jerry

 

I had a battery discharge problem on a 1991 Mercury Capri several years ago, and was stumped until I noticed one day while sitting in the car pondering what it might be that the glove box light was on with the door closed. You might want to check out that adjustment. Over a period of time it drained a brand new battery down to nothing.

good luck

 

Thanks.
No glove box light or under hood light either. Just checked again.

 

Still hoping for a solution.

Jerry

 

This may sound simplistic, but my son's Eclipse had a similar problem and we isolated it to a shorting wire coming thru the firewall where a grommet had fallen out by pulling fuses one at a time and checking current draw. We isloated the circuit where the draw was occuring then using a wiring diagram traced down the wires to find the short. For some reason it wasn't popping the fuse though.

 

You might want to disconnect the neg terminal..or hook up a trickle charger to make sure the battery is charged enough not to freeze.

 

well i hope this helps, rangers sometimes came with an auxillary heater and a fuse was put in and may be a back up fuse for a termastat this will cause a constant power loop. simply pull the extra fuse. this hap pened in my 93. check it out it wont cost you anything.

 

I had an overnight drain on my '88 ranger which I solved be replacing the voltage regulator.

 

Disconnecting the plug to the Generic Electronics Module drops the current drain to zero. I have ordered the wiring diagrams for this year and maybe they will give a hint just what the GEM actually does.

Thanks to all so far.

Jerry

 

The GEM is a wonderfully located module / pack of relays to operate several funtions in the vehicle. Dome lights,door chime,intermintent wipers, 4X4 operation and more. They cost about 130.00 and are a pain to replace. Does this help. Good luck.

 

Getting at the GEM wasn't all that bad. I actually had the circuit board in my hand. But I read on this forum that it had to be programmed at the Ford dealer. True?

There is a programmable microprocessor on the board.

Jerry

 

That is correct.