Well bedrock, I know how to test, I just am having a little trouble doing so right now. I was in an accident. The tendon from my right knee cap snapped at the tibia and the tendon from my left knee cap was so strong that it just pulled the bone out of that tibia. Both knee caps were shattered and about a third of each were removed because of the small pieces and the remainder screwed, pinned and sutured back together. I was looking for some ideas before I spent the painful time doing the real trouble shooting. Most of my tools aren't where I can access from a walker in the garage and I had to wait on a helper to fetch what I need. You usually give great advice and I was a bit disappointed in your immediate assumption that I need to learn better troubleshooting skills when the charger was the only thing I had access to at the time. I didn't want to write a book about my situation (which I feel I am doing now) I was just hoping for a couple of quick ideas from others experiences to cut down my time of having to be on my feet. Not wanting to go into the details originally with how I used the charger as my first testing instrument, I will do so now.
The terminals had been cleaned a couple of weeks previous in preparation for winter, and I gave them a attempted twist to see if they were tight, which they were. When I first connected the charger it was maxing out and then after a few seconds, would have an extra draw that would set off the internal breaker. I now know that was the rear wiper attempting to do a cycle to closed position. But at the time without access to any of my meters I thought it was a short of some kind. So I disconnected the battery terminals and did a long charge that ran normally. I reconnected the battery. Putting the negative terminal on gave just the tiny normal spark and not the large one I should see if there was a short. It started up fine. I had my laptop brought out and hooked it up. Of course all the old codes were gone, but I didn't see anything come up for all the checks I could think of. That is when it went to Advance Auto and had them do the testing I mentioned. Things seemed ok. Since my stepson had been driving it, I figured he must have left something on and that is why the battery went dead. The next morning, dead battery. Charger acted the same so I charged the battery disconnected. After it was charged and reconnected, I put the charger on the connected battery to see what would happen. That was when I saw the 2 amp spike every 34 seconds. I turned off the charger and went inside for an hour so that the PCM and sensors would have their normal time to do their checks and maybe they were the cause of the draw. Charger back on, the draw continued. I wondered if it was related to the theft system and dismissed the rear wiper having worked on it a couple of years ago. Came inside and posted hoping for some help. My legs were killing me at that point. I decided I'd still take a look at the wiper. Opened the window hatch and a few seconds later, the motor cycled. The arm moved by hand but wasn't the easy movement it should have been. Looked at the charger and no more draws every 34 seconds. I didn't try turning on the wiper to see if it worked well or wasn't going all the way back to the stop position, I just took apart the wiper. The gold colored grease I had used was basically gone. It had a circle of corrosion about midway inside the shaft. I scrapped it all out and then used red grease this time. I myself haven't driven it for a couple of years, so it hasn't had the thorough and timely checks that it should. Like trying to move the wiper arm with the glass hatch open. A wash every two weeks instead of once a year. A stepson living in the basement, driving my Expedition instead of me is a different story. Solving that would probably lead to divorce and my losing the Expedition and house anyway.
