so i week ago i go out to my truck to start it. i disarm the alarm and get in it. when i turned the ignition to on and the dash lights come on, then when i turn it to start i can hear the started selenoid click and then everything goes dead. i can turn my ingiton off and then back on and the dash lights still dont come on. i went les swchwab and they checked my battery and alternator and both were at or above standard. i dont know if something is grounding out or just draining the battery. it sat for about 5 hours today while i was at school and when i came out it did the same thing it did a week ago. i disconnected my amp and im leaving my alarm off( i dont think this could draw enough power to drain a battery), have any of you had a problem like this before?

-Jared

i checked and cleaned both grounds coming off the battery and checked to positive cable going to the fuse block and nothing was loose are badly corroded so im still not sure whats draining the battery or if something else is grounding out. Does anyone have ideas?

Have you installed any other accessories like lights? You could have a wire that is pinched or has rubbed and is shorting out against the body, frame, or in the relay. Depending on the size of the wire used the short may not be strong enough to blow a fuse, just enough to drain the battery.

Not sure excatly what your driving... but Ive got a similar issue. Turns out it was a switch in the auto tranny. It allows to the truck to only start in park or neutral. Seemed like a little too much coffee was spilled on mine and after some cleaning, the problem was fixed.

may have a draw... pull the negative and with a meter on the positive terminal and the negative wire there should be nothing more that 2 volts if so have someone pull fuses to it disappears. this way you know which circuit is possible causeing a drain. usally its an incorrectly installed amp or alarm system

Better to test with a current (or amp) meter to check for the actual current being drawn with everything "off". Disconnect one cable from the battery then clip the ammeter between the cable and the terminal on the battery it came off of. Problem is in modern vehicles, not everything turns off, there are clocks, memory power for radios, the ECU, etc. and who knows what else pulling small amounts of currnet. Typical draws are in the 20-30 mA range (0.020 - 0.030 amps). If you get much over that, then something is probably wrong. As stated, pull fuses until the current flow drops, then figure out what things are powered via that fuse and check out each item. A good battery can probably take a 30mA drain for 2-4 weeks w/o trouble. A bad battery might not handle that overnight.

The easiest way I was taught to look for a drain is to disconnect the negative battery and hook a test light up between the terminal and cable. If there's enough amperage going through to fully light up the light then there's something draining it.
Not saying it's the best way, but depending on the tools you have it's one more option. If you have a voltmeter/multimeter go with that.

Good luck fixing whatever the problem may be.

I have the same problem to an extent and it's because the battery cables are corroded inside pretty much the whole length.
Everything will seem to work fine until I'd go to start it and it would kill everything. I finally learned that I had to position the battery cable just right to make sure this didn't happen. I still haven't replaced the cables, but hey, at least I bought 'em <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/notooth.gif" alt="" />

last night i checked all the cables running off the terminals and checked to make sure they were tight in the fuse block and everything looked fine. the weird part is it first happened a week ago, then it didnt happen again untill yesterday, and it happened twice. i went out this morning and it started right up. it seems to me i have something thats grounding out but not all the time. if something was still drawing from the battery then i dont see why it would be fine for a week and then all of the sudden die in about 4-5 hours. i'll try some of the things you guys suggested. oh yeah my truck is an 87' ext cab and a 5spd so i dont think its something with the tranny not letting it start.

I once owned a 1986 Chevy 4x4 pickup ( don't hit me , it went with the ex in the settlement ). Anyway, I had similar problem, searched and searched for the cause. One night a friend of mine and I were out in a local parking lot -- very loose gravel. I put it in 4WD and cranked the wheel hard to the left. He said he could see some sparking from behind the wheelwell on the right side ( battery on the right side, too, btw). Turns out the battery cable was rubbing on the inner fender in turns and was shorting, intermittently, laying on the fender sometimes and not on it, others. It didn't appear to even be damaged,but upon closer inspection a fine crack in the insulation had worn thru. Just luck that we found that one. Seems like you just got a short somewhere.

Mike in AR

The other thing to check next time it happens is to measure the battery voltage when you try to start it. Check it now while it is working then check it when it doesn't work and see if there is any change. If the battery voltage is a lot lower when it does not start, that would point to the battery going bad. If the battery voltage is good, then it may be a wiring issue someplace. Sometimes wires can corrode underneath the insulation at either end. They will look fine from outside, but if you examine them closer, you'll see the problem. One way to trace those sorts of issues is to check the voltage drop acros the cable. Put a voltmeter from say the + post on the battery to the fuse box + terminal or to the power stud on the starter and then try to start the engine. If you see more than a few 10ths of a volt drop, the cable may be bad.