Chop top electric draw

I cut the back portion of my jeep off, and now when I reconnect the battery there is a draw somewhere that is slowly draining the battery. However, when all the front doors are shut the interior lights turn off. I assume if the sensor in the back was open it would keep the lights on in the interior, so I am curious what else I might be missing. Basically, my battery was dead, so I jumped it, ran it for a while, then left the battery connected for a few days and tried to restart it and had to jump it again. Perhaps the battery hadnt had a long enough chance to charge? Just wondering if there is anything I should look into. THanks....
j

IIRC, there's a couple of wires going from the hatch to the rear portion of the XJ (this is a XJ we're talkin about here, right?). Did you look into that?

Most proly there's a wire somewhere touching metal... and if it is confined to the rear portion it shouldnt be hard to find it... just pull or move all the wires you find to see if there's any contact at all...

Also, about the battery, there's 2 things:

1- if the batt was in really bad shape, a short lil trip wont charge it.
2- if you DID found it COMPLETLY dead, then its time for a new battery... they really cant handle that at all...

Good luck, you'll need it... I hate electrical problems. Give me a clunkin' sound ANYTIME!

I'm going to guess that you got a wire for the hatch switch for the dome light shorting out.

IdahoEagle said:

I'm going to guess that you got a wire for the hatch switch for the dome light shorting out.

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How would I go about tracing that?
j

you cut off your roof yet you dont know how to trace a wire?


it comes up by the rear drivers side tail light, IIRC

Couple suggestions. It is pretty easy to check if there is actually a draw. With a good battery in place, if you take one cable off and connect one side of a test light to the cable and the other side touch to the battery post. If there is a draw, test light will light up. Make sure all doors are closed and no lights or accesories or key are turned on before you unhook the battery.

If you have a draw, try first unplugging the wiring loom that runs to the rear of the vehicle(plug is in the left kick panel) If you light goes off you know it is in that loom. Plug it back in. Then there's 3 or 4 plugs back behind the lt. quarter trim panel that can be unplugged one at a time. Then if you find the draw in a smaller loom, unhook things that are run off that loom until you find it.

You can also unplug one fuse at a time to help narrow down what cicuit may have a problem.

Use an ammeter...not a test light. Otherwise the procedure sounds good.

Rev

hey i did this mod some time ago. xj never had any battery issues until this. theres a ground what year is your xj? on my 96 theres a ground that is in the driverside tailight harness it should be attached inside the fender well area. i removed my for a day and battery went dead. i then grounded again and wala battery stays charged

Rev Den said:

Use an ammeter...not a test light. Otherwise the procedure sounds good.

Rev

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It works great with a test light. Try it. Unhook a cable and hook one side of test light to cable and other to battery, open a door (dome light load) and the light will come on, close door, it will go off.

87xjco said:

It works great with a test light. Try it. Unhook a cable and hook one side of test light to cable and other to battery, open a door (dome light load) and the light will come on, close door, it will go off.

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I have done both (ammeter and light) with good luck. The only thing I changed was I pulled fuses until the light went out. That told me which circuit was shorted. It was a fast and effective way to narrow it down. It did not find it for me completely but it left a very short list of places to look.