'86 5000 CS Turbo Quattro

Battery voltage being drained whenever the car is running because of a short somewhere.

What I do know:

On the dash the antilock, battery, and parking brake lights are continously on when the car is running.
When the lights are turned on, right turn signal turns on constantly (does not blink).
When signaling right (with lights off) tail lights also blink.
Tail lights also blink when emergency flashers are on.

Fuses are all ok. Occasionally the 5 amp fuse for right tail light blows, which allows the right turn signal to blink with the lights on but doesn't change the dash lights. Battery still drains.

I have the Bently electrical manual...don't see where along the current tracks where all of these components meet.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

this is just a hunch, but judging by what you are saying and my experiecne with my 87, open up your trunk, get in there on your back, and pull back the drivers side carpeting (the one that goes from the floor to the top of the quarter panel, and look for a big cluster of wires. something tells me that at least one of those has cracked and is shorting out.

All of mine were completely broken(lots of fun with butt connectors) and i also developed a short in a wire leading from the fuse box to the back as well that i gave up on trying to find and just ran new wire. I never had the problem with all the warning lights comming on, but every other problem i did and they went away after fixing those problems...

 

Thanks, I'll take a look at that cluster and see what I can find.

 

Every fuse has been taken out of the primary fusebox and there's still a short somewhere, causing the battery to drain. Any other places I may be able to check? I'll know the problem has been fixed when those dash lights stop being illuminated.

Thanks.

 

the nice wonderful thing about these cars is that the entire fuse box grounds when you shut the key off, which makes it difficult to test the fuse box with a test light. You say the ABS light is on, maybe check and see if there is any codes stored. Maybe there is a problem with the cluster switch(the thing that has the headlight, turn signal, wiper, etc, switches in it) try unplugging that and letting it sit to see if the battery still goes dead.

 

you may also want to check the relay panel under the dash board as well, seems to me there's a few fuses under there as well