Battery draining

[sprokit]

Hi all. This forum has been a great help in the past with X problems I have encountered. Here is another one.
Why when people ask for help with their X's is it an elctrical problem ( I helped anoth friend with an ignition problem about 3 months ago.


Helping a friend with his 93 X 4.0. Seems it died on him the other day while driving. He jumped it and got it running long enough to get it home (5 minutes). He was lettign it run in the parking lot and it died again. When he jumped the next time, it ran fo a bit and died. He noticed the alternator making weird noises (gearings).
Today we took th alt to Napa and tested it. The bearings were shot but it passed the tester. he go a new one and we put it in. Jumped it and it died about 5 minutes after I removed the jumper cables.
Tried again, noticed that with teh cables on, the voltage guage read just under 12 volts but after removing jumper cables, the voltage dropped all the way to the right and shortly it died again.

Checked battery the cables and connectors they looked good.

Went and got my multimeter and ran the checks that Haynes has. Key off, battery voltage reads 10 volts (I expected this as the battery was drained pretty low. Key on, batttery voltage started dropping. It appears there is a major drain as it did not take long for the voltage to drop several volts. Continued and checked the alternator connections like the book said. B terminal has battery voltage with key off, and A and B have battery voltage with key on, but the "I" connection has 2.5 vice 1.0 like the book said

Anyhow, decided to keep troubleshooting the drain according to Haynes. With key off, connected test light between positive terminal and the connector The light lit fairlty bright . Starterd removing each fuse on the fuse block and the light stayed lit. Also tried the relays but the lightstayed on.
Deciding maybe this is the normal drain with the ley off I decided to turn the ley on and measure agin across teh battery and try pulling fuses to see what stiped teh drain. The first fuse I pulled "IGN" stopped the drain.

Now if the ignition circuit is draining the voltage that much, where do i start looking? Did I miss anything ?

Any help you can give wil l be most appreciated.

Back ground on the X, No electrical mods, no alarm, 75,000 miles. An the battery is only about two months ols (Energizer).

 

[Opera House]

Check the 15A alternator fuse

There have been a couple of reports of the fuse clips becoming corroded and not being able to supply enough current to the regulator. Even if this fuse is open, residual magnetism in the rotor is enough to do some charging at a very light load. Most are unaware that the alt light circuit is what turns the alternator on. They put a resistor across the bulb in case the lamp burns out. A bad connection in this line would also cause this problem. This is obviously a wiring problem. Don't know if I would be concerned about the test light. Most of these don't need much current (0.1A). Try something like a brake light.