1 amp draw

I have a 1 amp draw from my battery to my volt guage in the car. The battery with the car running is showing 14.7 but the guage in the car is showing 13. A new 1 wire alternator was installed. A couple of weeks ago the car died at the starting line at the strip and had to be pushed off. Jumped it and it started right away. I am thinking(now thats dangerous) that the header may be too close to the starter or I screwed up in the wiring of the volt guage. Does anyone have any ideas or has had a similar problem.

Jim

The gauge alone should not be pulling current with the engine off. Take any old light socket you have laying around and, disconnect the ground to your battery. take 1 side of the socket to the negative of the battery, the other to any clean metal on the car. If the bulb lights, You have something miswired.

Take fuses out until the current draw stops. Could be a simple short or wrongly wired relay, etc

The voltmeter shouldn't draw much current. Did you measure the draw with a DVM in series? The voltmeter reads the difference in potential between positive and ground, so you could have a bad meter, a bad ground or resistance in the power side which would account for the 14.7/13 volt discrepancy.

Steve

I've made a series of measurements of actual voltage under the dash to the battery voltage when the car is running and on two different cars. Both cars read 13.5+V at the battery and something like 11.8V under the dash. A true voltmeter will draw anywhere from 50 to 100 milliamps. Some aftermarket radios will draw 150 ma.

I agree with removing fuses one at a time (with the battery disconnected) and then measuring the current draw with nothing on and the car shut down. If the condition persists with all fuses out, then the culprit is a non-fused line: headlamp switch, ignition switch, voltage regulator, ammeter, aftermarket voltmeter, radio.

Found the problem. Somehow the positive cable got damaged probally when putting the engine back in. Replaced the cable and cured the problem. Thanks to all who replied.

Jim

Damaged, how?

Shorting through the insulation?