Offroad-Express

Hi guys, ok so sorted one Disco out with new winch cables and second battery so now for my TD300.

I have had battery drain for about a year now and can't find it. I disconnected the pos and bridged the amp meter across the terminals and get 0.21 amps draw. I have removed one fuse at a time and haven't seen much improvmant at all and have also had the 12 month old battery tested and it's passed perfectly fine. Infact I have two identical except 730 amp batteries in both trucks and swapped them around after having both tested and it's the same.

If the truck stands for 5 days it barely starts and this is with a small solar panel hooked up to try keep it sort of charged. I have run out of ideas and even had the alternator disconnected but no joy. The only after market items are the radio, two roof mounted 22" LED bars and a pair of 260watt Hella rally spots. Had these all disconnected as well.

What have I missed please?

is .21 amps much draw? the reason I ask, is that my mechanic suggested they use .25 as the trigger point at which they consider there is a problem... I guess at the end of the day, the problem is the battery is being drained. Maybe a plug in trickle charger until you find the solution?

Yer, I have a trickle charger for my bike which I could use but really want to find the reason. One small solar charger from Super cheap makes the battery last about 5/6 days then it will not start. With the solar panel is gets 4/5 days and sits on 11.6 volt approx.
I'm measuring the voltage every morning at 7ish and when I get home round 6 and each time its lost about .3v.......

11.6 is not enough to charge a car battery needs to be 13+ volts not including any draw from radio memory alarms etc.

Effectively the solar charger isn't doing anything significant to help the situation.

You may want to get the starter/solenoid checked out as that would be another culprit since its hooked to the battery full time

It sounds to me like an earth leak somewhere, this could be in the starter as sugested, the other likely culprit is the alternator.
Failing either of these, a wire rubbed through somewhere to earth, or even corroded or dodgy connection on the hot side, again, alt and starter would be the first culprits, pull the conectors and hose them with CRC, plug and unplug them a few times to scuff the contact surfaces.

I recently had a an abs fault with mine which turned out to be a faulty abs relay. Caused by water leaking from ( I suspect) around the windscreen. This also caused my battery to slowly discharge as the relays under the glovebox were filling up with water. I suggest you pop the glovebox out and have a look at the relays and where they mount onto the bracket, and look for any water or rust spots around the relays. If it looks like there has been water there, pop the covers off the relays and take a look at the relays on the inside. You will see straight away if there has been water in them.
Good luck

Yer, the starter is next on the list of things to disconnect. I have done the alternator and nothing changed. I also unplugged my LED light bar relay, reverse LED switch, radio and still the same draw/ voltage loss. I will pop the power cable off the starter tonight as I don't use the old banger on week days so its perfect for disconnecting one thing at a time every 24 hours and measuring the change. Will keep you folks posted as a matter of interest.

I even removed the battery and fitted a thin rubber matt to the bottom and also make a strip for the mount bracket as well just to be sure.