Hello
I have a 2001 Excursion Limited with the 6.8L v10 and 175,000 miles. I have recently been dealing with a dead battery. Found out the truck has a parasitic draw of 364 milliamps. According to internet searches it should be around 25 to 40. I have let the truck sit overnight with the negative battery cable disconnected (hood up) and still have 364 milliamps draw when I connect the meter. I have traced it to fuse 15, stop lamp switch, PAT, GEM. When I remove the 5-amp fuse (#15) the draw goes down to 19 milliamps. The only electrical gremlin I've noticed is that once the battery is depleted and I try to start it (it just clicks) after I turn the key off it will try to crank again for 2-3 seconds (just clicking). I originally thought it was the auto start that has been installed. Other than that, I do not notice any electrical gremlins. I know that there is a lot of discussion about this problem and have read a lot of the post and will continue to keep reading them. Just a little impatient and hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
So, my question is this. Is this a faulty gem module or should I do further troubleshooting?
What could be causing the draw, no weird electrical problems?
I know that the gem module is a discontinued part from Ford. Is there a company that will repair these gem modules or an aftermarket supplier?
Thanks.
Brent.

 

By "auto start that has been installed", do you mean an aftermarket remote start system? Or something else? I have a Compustar alarm/remote-start system installed with GPS tracking & communication, and it definitely is a parasitic load on the system. If I don't drive my 2000 7.3L every couple weeks, it'll draw both batteries down significantly. I didn't measure to verify the Compustar was the culprit but rather deduced this after the system was installed.

 

yes, this vehicle has an aftermarket remote start installed before I bought it. I am thinking it may be the problem with the truck trying to start after a failed key start due to the depleted battery.

 

update: after reading some more posts I realized that my test was faulty in the sense that I was waiting long enough. Tonight, I hooked my meter in series with the negative battery cable and waited an hour to check it. My draw went from 364 milliamps to 35 milliamps which I believe is in spec. So, I guess, the 3-year-old Napa battery has gone bad. Second one in 5 years. Probably going to stay away from Napa batteries for a while.

 

my 2002 7.3 Excursion batteries were at 11.9 after getting home from a 3 week trip to Canada with my son.
I forgot to plug in the battery tender.

the starter made an effort, but gave up.
let it charge overnight and she fired right off, 14 hours later, they are fully charged after the trip home, and the DVM sat at 14.6 the whole trip.


spent a lot of time 2 years ago trying to find the Parasitic Draw, gave up and installed a 4 amp Battery Tender and said to hell with it.

 

I had a draw a few years ago, I narrowed it down to the Gem, I sent it to a company and they said it was a short to ground on the Gem. I ended up finding a used Gem at a junkyard, by giving them the Vin. Everything works now except the door code keypad.

 

Looks like you got it sorted.

There's a guy here ( @TooManyToys ) that has some good posts on electrical testing and a youtube channel that has some good videos.

https://www.youtube.com/@toomanytoys

You might check him out.