What's up guys...something is drawing my battery down...it stays charged if I drive it every other day...its not the alternator...I've looked for naked wires...and came up with nothing...any ideas???

 

Batteries can draw themselves down if they have a partially-shorted cell internally. Slow or fast, depends.

Spend ten bucks on a battery hydrometer and check each cell individually. If any one cell measures much differently, lower than the others, ya got it.

 

If the battery checks out,you might have a short to ground somewhere or a bulb remaining lit or powered that you cant see when the engine is off (i.e.-glovebox lamp,hood light,etc) If your starter spins over fine when the engine is cold,but drags or doesn't turn over at all once the engine gets hot & you shut it off then try to restart it, thoroughly inspect the 4ga starter cable its entire length.I had one that had been rubbing the corner of the oil pan until it had eventually wore a 6" long stretch of insulation off to a bare wire.It caused a huge short to ground.

Since the ECU (keep alive memory) and the radio (clock/preset memory) draw a very tiny amount of juice when the key is on & off, some have stated this can cause a test light to come on,when running the test Im fixing to give you instructions on how to do,but Ive never had either item cause this issue while I was running this test.You can pull the fuse for the radio & disconnect the harness from the ECU if you're worried about this issue occurring,but you should be fine without doing so.So heres the test Im referring to & how its done:
Disconnect the neg battery cable,attach the clip of a test light to the neg battery cable terminal then touch the test light probe directly to the neg battery post.Is the test light on?? If yes,you've got a short.Get a hose clamp,rubber band or something similar to keep the test light probe attached to the battery post,since you're gonna need to move to other areas of the car for further testing & you wont be able to hold the test light probe yourself.Now disconnect each harness from the alternator and watch the test light.
1) If the light remains on,reconnect the harnesses and continue testing using the info listed after step 2 below.
2) If the light shuts off,the alternator or harness you disconnected is shorted.
The harness wire can be shorted in two different ways.One way is from having chafed insulation & the bare wire is touching the block,parts attached to the block or the chassis.A second way is if more than one wire in a harness,wrapped in harness loom or tape,is chafed and the bare section of one wire is touching the bare section of the other wire,if one wire is a ground & the other has voltage.When wires short between each other,they oftentimes melt surrounding insulation which may be very easy to spot, however since most factory harnesses are covered in a combination of plastic wire loom & fabric tape,unwrapping of the loom may be necessary to find it.If the alternator check above passed,move to the fuse panel next.
Start pulling fuses one at a time.If you pull a fuse & the test light remains lit,reinsert that fuse & move on to the next one.If you pull a fuse that makes the test light shut off,you've found the short so you'll now have to find out which item in this circuit is the actual source of the short.Now that you've revealed the offending fuse circuit,reinsert the fuse so that the test light will come back on.If there's only one component being powered by the fuse,it should be fairly easy to find the actual source of the short.If there are numerous items being powered by the fuse,it'll take a little more time to locate the source,but the steps are the same.To locate it,start at the item being powered by the fuse and disconnect the harness from it.If the light shuts off,the item itself is shorted.If it remains lit,begin working your way back towards the fuse panel,disconnecting each harness,switch,etc until the test light shuts off again.Once you disconnect something that shuts the light off,that item or section of harness has the short.If the alternator & its harnesses & the fuses dont reveal a short, start searching harnesses & components under the hood then in the hatch/trunk & cabin area.
Some items Ive had issues with over the years on Foxbodys are things like the:
dome light,glovebox lamp,hood lamp,headlight/ foglight switch harness pigtail,blower motor resistor/harness pigtail,ignition switch/ harness pigtail,fusible links connected to the fender mounted starter solenoid,etc.

Hope this helps

 

If you need a visual aid, check out this video