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Before you do anything else, go do a visual check on the battery. Make sure the cables are connected and are not loose. Pull the tops and make sure there is water in the battery. Amazingly, dealer mechanics rarely check this. One other piece of advice. Dealers, when they sell vehicles, are notorious for putting cheap batteries in them. People rarely check this and you might have a 1 year battery in the van so check it. (see below) If this looks OK then:
A "parasitic drain" can only be one of two things. Either an electrical cable is shorted to ground or there is a device that is pulling a lot of current when the vehicle is turned off. I would say that almost always it won't be the short. These either blow a fuse or don't last long. If you have a decent multimeter, you can quickly eliminate the other condition. Simply turn off the vehicle, let it sit for a while so all the systems go to sleep, then pull the ground off the battery and measure the current. Connect the multimeter between the ground cable and the battery. If it is less than 50 milliamps then you probably don't have a parasitic drain. If it is 50 or higher then start pulling fuses until current drops to close to zero. This will tell you where the fault lies.
If the above doesn't yield results, then you either have an alternator or a bad battery issue. My recommendation is to first go and get a $25 or $30 battery charger and connect it up to the battery and try to charge it. Most of the modern chargers will tell you if the battery is bad. If the battery charges up without issue, then it is probably the alternator.
Find someone who knows how to use a voltage meter. Unhook the negative cable and hook up the volt meter between the negative cable and ground. You should see a current draw. Start pulling and replacing fuses one by one. When you see a drop on the meter, indicating there was a draw, you will have found the problem. Then, I don't know why any tech worth a hoot cannot figure this out. If it's the alternator not putting out enough juice, a simple check with a meter will tell if the alternator is putting out the correct current to the battery. I have seen or know of cases where there would be a bad ground wire (rusty or loose) and it's like finding a needle in a haystack. Nothing can be more maddening than trying to find a short or bad ground that causes a battery drain. Speaking from experience. Good luck!
As I said in the previous post, you need a multimeter. A simple volt meter will not measure current.
Quite right, you MUST have a meter that can measure DC Current. This should preferrably be to 10 Amps minimum.
To find the fault, do just as yantosh22 said in his earlier post.
Additionally, with the ignition off (because that's the condition where the battery runs down). watch the meter to see IF there is a reading - 0 is what you are looking for buy thingls like the clock will draw minimal current even when the ignition is off.
Test the principle by turning on just the lights on and off briefly. The meter should move.
NOTE THE METE READING WITH EVERYTHING OFF. Now remove each fuse one at a time and see what the meter reading does. MOst fuse removal under this condition wiill do nothing. One or two will stop the clock or lose the radio programming.
What you are looking for is a sudden drop for no aparent reason.
You can roughly calculate the parasitic drain like this.
Check the battery capacity in Amp-Hours. Let's say this is 100 which is a bit high but makes for easy calculations.
100 Amp-Hours (100AH) means that the battery can supply 1 Amp for 100 hours or, (gonna get warm) 100 Amps for 1 hour before it runs flat.
Fully charge the battery to maximum for 24 hours. Note the time and disconnect the charger and leave the car standing. Wait until the battery is totally flat and it won't illuminate the cars lights.
Note the time and work out the difference between when you took the charger off and now. How many hours. If this time is 25 hours then you have a 4 amp (100 / 25 = 4) leakage.
Over a forum post I can't do much more but this is the method to find the problem.
Ok, I specialized in these types of problems for years. First thing I would look for would be an issue in the power ramp system. If the problem wasn't present before, I would suspect it had something to do with the conversion. Try disconnecting the heavy battery cable going to the ramp system and see if the drain goes away.
Now with that being said, I'll also say, don't assume that it is associated either. So many times things happen, and mechanics get the blame.
As for the alternator causing a drain, it is very common. There is a switching device internally called a regulator that will get stuck on. The alternator will charge, but not turn off. An easy check is to either disconnect and see if the drain disappears, or feel the alternator to see if it is hot after the engine has cooled.
To check the battery, find someone that has a battery load tester, and load test to the proper amp load per cold cranking amps for 15 seconds. Anything over 9.5-10 volts after the 15 second period is typically good. Also want to look at return voltage. A good battery will return to static voltage fairly quickly, approx, 12.5v.
As for the voltmeter/test lamp, between the ground lug and the ground cable. This is tough for an inexperienced person, due to the fact that so many systems require power when the vehicle is off. Yes you could do this and remove fuses, but you have to know what all is on that circuit. A lot of components will go to sleep as mentioned before, but when the battery is disconnected and a tester is put between the cable and lug, these systems try to come back on, and in some cases draw even more power. A better test for these types of cars is to look for current instead of voltage. In layman's terms, current is volume. An easy way to understand voltage vs current is to think of water. Voltage is equal to pressure and currant is equal to volume. Two hoses connected to the same source will have the same pressure (voltage) but if one hose is a larger diameter than the other. The larger hose will carry more volume (currant/amps). This test can still be trying to the inexperienced.
Some other things to look for would be, power seat controls that are sticking or jammed, cigarette lighters that aren't working but are depressed. Lighting in a compartment that is not turning off, malfunctioning interior delay lighting, stuck relays.
I hope something I've mentioned sheds some light. I'll be glad to help anyway I can. Good luck.
.... A better test for these types of cars is to look for current instead of voltage.
The test that was described above was a current check.
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