I have a drain somewhere in my truck. When I leave my truck sitting for a few weeks, I'll come back to start it and it's dead. I usually have to leave the charger on it overnight to get it to crank in the morning.

How can I chase down whatever is causing the drain?

 

id think the radio, factory alarm, cluster trips settings and basic little things would cause enough pull to drain a battery after a few weeks of not being started therefor not having any charge.

 

You need an ammeter hooked in series with the negative battery cable to find a parasitic draw. Anything more than 50 milliamps is too much. Here's how I do it: For starters you'll need a digital multi-meter, jumper wire, fuse puller (or needle nose pliers), and eventually hand tools. First the battery must be healthy and fully charged, or your readings will be inaccurate. Make sure that all accessories are off, key is off, lights off, etc. Next disconnect the negative battery cable and run a jumper wire from the cable to the battery. With the jumper wire installed, you hook up the leads to your meter, then remove the jumper wire. (by using the jumper wire, you are protecting the meter...if you were just to disconnect the cable and hook up the meter, there could be a spike in current flow that could blow the meter's fuse or damage the meter). Now check the meter reading...You may have to wait a few seconds to a few minutes for some capacitors to discharge, the security system to stabilize, etc. If the meter is reading more than 50 milliamp, there is an excessive draw. You can narrow down which circuit it is by removing and re-installing fuses one at a time, and observing what happens on the meter. If you remove a fuse and the meter reading goes to the acceptable range, you've now found the circuit that contains the drain. Re-install the fuse and get a schematic to see what components that circuit contains and start dis-connecting components one at a time just as you did with the fuses until you narrow it down again. It could take minutes or hours to find the circuit that is remaining powered up.

 

Sweet! Thanks Bud