I have a 97 22’ 454/300 bowrider, and for the last few years I have noticed that when I leave the boat for a week, the battery goes dead. Obviously I have a draw on the battery. I did a test (after reading a thread from last week that Audiofn answered) and left the positive cable connected and disconnected the negative and connected a test light between the battery and cable. The light was as bright as it is when connected directly to the battery. I pulled each fuse one at a time and checked the test light and it lit everytime. I did this hoping it may be in the line at the fuse box. I have no “flooky” characteristics with the whole electrical system, so I am at a loss as to what/where to go from here. Now, this is where I need some OSO brotherly help! WHAT do I do next as far as checking the current draw? I need all suggestions you guys can give me too check. I do have dual batteries with a switch that I turn off now all the time to save my batteries. I always turn off the radio if I am leaving the boat all night.

What you have to do now is with the light hooked up btwn your battery and neg. cable is to start to pull things out of the loop. Like disconnect your engine harness and see if the light goes out. Make sure all your lights are turned off, Pull any accesory harness that can be easily disconnected. Look for anywere that the harness could have chaffed its way through causing a short. If you pull the Engine harness and the light goes out then you know the problem is in the engine and you can start to narrow your search from there. Like pulling off plugs to senders and such to see what one is causeing the draw. It can take some time to find some of these draws so be patient.

Jon

Go with unpluging the engine harness first. I had where alt. diodes give out & cause a draw on battery all the time.

Thanks for the replies guys, and I'll start with the alternator 1st since I have 2 answers (another one from Airpacker on the general discussion area) with that as a likely problem. Hey Jon, I was checking out your sanding job on your Formula you're doing. Man, that's a lot of work, but it surely looks good and with a Formula you can't go wrong. Those boats last forever and never go out of style. All ya do is refinish them and repaint and you've got a new one. I'll bet your arms and hands are hurtin pups. Make sure you keep feeding all of us progreesive pics of your project. It looks like I may be busy trying to track down my battery draw. I will take my time as you said because it isn't doing anything flooky with the electrical system the way it is.

Is your battery still going dead when you turn the battery switch to off?

If you don't have a battery switch, get one.
At the end of the day you just turn it off and never worry about dead batteries again.
But you still have to find the problem.