Battery drained every morning

recently went through a total of three battery’s and two alternators (now I’m sure they’re not the problem). New cable going to the starter to the battery, new stock ford terminals, fuseable link is okay, went brought the fuse box there’s no blown fuse.

When it sits for around ten hours (my whole work shift or when I’m off at 7pm till I’m getting ready for work the next morning 8am) it’s dead. When I jump it or if nobody’s around hook the battery charger to the battery it turns on.

Nothing is being left on I’m absolutely sure (as far as visible lights) no doors open nothing .

Has anyone had a parasitic draw issue and how did they solve it ?
- I conducted the draw test but I’m almost sure I did it wrong , is there an easier way?
-what else should I look at , anything that could potentially be draining the battery?

04 expedition Eddie Bauer 4.6L

.... THANK YOU!

How did you perform the draw test and what meter did you use? That is the fastest way to determine which circuit the problem is on.

We had a problem with our rear DVD player. Sometimes it would not shut off and drain the battery over a short period of time.Never found out what caused it I used the old fist pounding method.Only noticed it was running when it was really quiet parked in garage.You could hear the motor running inside.

To do a current draw test reliably disconnect negative terminal, set your meter to the highest amp reading it has, usually 10A or 20 if you have a nice one. Put probes in appropriate places, red in 10A and black in com. Unhook negative battery cable, attach red lead to cable and black lead to battery negative terminal. All current is now flowing through the meter so be sure you dont have a big load like headlights, radio or anything going. It's best to roll a window down first and shut the door, give the car 5 or 10min to go to "sleep" so various modules can be as active as little as possible. See what you get if you see anything above about 150ma start looking for issues, you will likely need to pull fuses one at a time to narrow it down. It's a tedious process but it sounds like you've had some trouble with this one and about the only way to get at it.

Remote start systems, radio, amps, many things can cause a drain large enough to kill a battery over the course of a day. Do you have any aftermarket add ons, that's the first things I'd check.

I had trouble blowing the fuse in my meter doing the parasitic drain test. When you hook up the battery, my headlights came on briefly. Pretty sure switch was off though. Came up with this instead.

Here's how I did the parasitic drain test. It's a little different than I've seen, but you don't blow up fuses in your meter this way. (I now have spares) .

1) Disconnect the negative cable.
2) Clamp the positive lead of your meter and a 1 foot or so piece of wire that can handle 10 amps or so. I used a section of 14 gauge lamp cord with both wires twisted together.
3) disconnect the wire from your meter just to be sure.
4) clamp the negative lead of your meter to the negative battery terminal.
5) set your meter to 20 Amp of you have it Some are 10 only That will be fine if you do it this way.
6) connect other end of lamp wire to the battery. You are going to leave it connected for a bit without removing it. Wait till the lights go out.
7) with the lamp cord still connected, plug in the leads to your meter. (still set on 10 or 20 Amp). It should read 0 on the meter.
8) take off the lamp cord from the negative terminal. If you do it before the lights go off, you will be above a couple Amps or so. Mine was about 3.
9) the Amp reading drops in stages. Mine went to .70 then .50 for min or so. It stayed around .20 for 10 min.
10) I think the 10 min mark is when the power saving kicks in. The meter showed 0 on the 20 Amp setting.
11) now we want to see what it is really drawing in sleep.
12) with everything still connected, put the lamp cord back on the battery.
13) depending on the meter, you will probably have to move the lead from 20amp to the milliamp setting. Do that and set meter to milliamps.
14) take the lamp cord back off. Mine now reads 12 mA to 24 mA. There is an occasional jump once a min or so to 100 mA.

I had a rear wiper that wouldn't return to home position because the bushing was boogered up. Drained that battery continuously until that got fixed.

Aspen03 said:

To do a current draw test reliably disconnect negative terminal, set your meter to the highest amp reading it has, usually 10A or 20 if you have a nice one. Put probes in appropriate places, red in 10A and black in com. Unhook negative battery cable, attach red lead to cable and black lead to battery negative terminal. All current is now flowing through the meter so be sure you dont have a big load like headlights, radio or anything going. It's best to roll a window down first and shut the door, give the car 5 or 10min to go to "sleep" so various modules can be as active as little as possible. See what you get if you see anything above about 150ma start looking for issues, you will likely need to pull fuses one at a time to narrow it down. It's a tedious process but it sounds like you've had some trouble with this one and about the only way to get at it.

Remote start systems, radio, amps, many things can cause a drain large enough to kill a battery over the course of a day. Do you have any aftermarket add ons, that's the first things I'd check.

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I have an after market radio, but the wiring is in properly and I’m sure it’s the least of the issues. Probably not an issue at all. Question though, my fuse panel in at the foot of the passenger seat to the right, meaning that in order to do the test (shit the door etc to allow it to go into “sleep mode”) I need that door open so I can crouch down and reach into the fuse panel. I’ve read that you can close the door latch with the door open to simulate the door being closed, do you know this trick to be true ? Also , if I do the draw test and locate a fuse that causes the voltage to drop, do I replace the fuse itself ? What if the fuse is not blown? How do I solve the problem if I locate a fuse that causes a draw?

You can usually just rotate the locking cam to the closed position and use a large flat screwdriver to unlock once you are ready to close the door.

Fuses are just a weak link that fails before the component does. If the fuse is good it is a waste on money to replace it.

Once you have located the circuit that has the extra draw on it, you read the wiring diagram for that circuit and determine which components are on it. At this point you attach the meter again, unplug each component on that circuit one at a time while watching the reading. Once the problem is disconnected the meter reading will drop.

Can you read and understand wiring diagrams?

Make sure your meter can measure amp draw or you waste your time.

Went through 3 alternators - how were they proven to be defective?

MrSticker said:

I had a rear wiper that wouldn't return to home position because the bushing was boogered up. Drained that battery continuously until that got fixed.

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Same here. I had a draw and I couldn't figure it out. I just happened to pop the rear glass to get something out of the back and the motor cycled. I closed the window and turned on the rear wiper again; it didn't move. So I popped the glass again and it cycled once more. There was heavy resistance in moving the wiper blade by hand. I took it apart and greased the innards really good. It solved my problem.

Disconnect neg battery terminal. Get an old 12v bulb. Install it between your neg battery terminal and cable. If it lights up, you have a parasitic drain. Pull one fuse at a time until it goes out. I found a stuck CD changer doing this. It would kill the battery over 12hrs.