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electrical short in 2001 cherokee

supertrooper90

NAXJA Forum User
Location
nj
So I'm in the process of building my wifes old 2001 cherokee. After leaving it sit for about 2 days the battery is to dead to start and about 4 days it is completely dead. I got out my test light and disconnected the negative battery cable and started pulling fuses under the hood. I pulled one of the small 15amp fuses and the test light went out. As far as I could tell it controls the interior lights, radio, and the instrument panel gauges. So now that I have it narrowed down, how do I proceed? The other thing i noticed was my test light was pulsing from bright to less bright. almost like a heart beat.
 
As you determined, something is drawing power. If it were the interior lights at least you would see that. Parasitic draws on batteries which are difficult to trace are usually aftermarket components such as alarm systems. Could be a dead cell or two in the battery. A dead short, maybe a door switch for the interior lights? You might want to check all the major grounds and other connections. I just bought a battery cable kit form a vendor here for my 01 Cherokee as the OEM stuff is pretty corroded.
 
we have had this jeep since it was new, and theres not much aftermarket stuff on it. Just the stereo, but when I pull the radio fuse it doesn't change the test light. I'll start pulling out and disconnecting the door switches. I'm confident that there is nothing wrong with the battery, since the voltage has stayed the same since i pulled the offending fuse on friday.
 
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