Hunting down my Battery Drain

I have a 92' that I just installed a Smittybilt 10K Winch on. I have all doors removable, with the interior-light switches cut. The battery is about 2 months old (Sears brand -- Gold top) and the alternator is the same age. I have only used the winch to load-wind the cable, and one semi-heavy self extract.

The problem I'm having is that over about a 24 hour period, the battery will drain enough that it won't be able to start on it's own power.

The winch is wired straight to both terminals on the battery, as instructed by Smittybilt.

Any suggestions? How do I start hunting down the problem?

Thanks a lot for any help that you guys can offer up

Hook a current meter between one of the battery cables and the terminal. with the key off and all doors "closed" (unplug the underhood light too), you should only see about 100mA (0.1 A) if all is normal. Any more than that, you've got a parasitic draw to chase.

To do that, leave the current meter in place and disconnect things one at a time to see if they have any effect on the drain. By going one-by-one, you can isolate the problem.

When did this battery drain start? Was it when you did the winch, or was it doing this before that? I'd start with the winch, then work your way through the fuses under the hood, then into the interior fuse block until you find it.

Something else to think about - do you have a power radio antenna? My '92 does, and when it died, it would throw a 1-amp load on the battery for a fraction of a second every 15 seconds or so. Took a very quiet driveway to find it (the clunk was REALLY quiet).

It's not likely the winch, but it would be easy to disconnect he winch cables from the battery to see if it still dies overnight. You can then pull fuses one at a time and see if it dies overnight, that narrows it down to which circuit has a problem.

A 12 volt test light, or just a 12 volt bulb w/socket or wires attached, put it in series with the negative cable and the negative battery post. A very dim glow would indicate the normal small draw of the radio and PCM memories. If it lights up brightly you have an excessive draw--start unplugging things until the light goes out (or very dim)--you have found the circuit with the draw. Same thing as using a meter, but the light is much easier to see if you get down to the point where you are pulling fuses in the cabin.