# battery drain: nissan frontier 2001



## boardrider036 (Mar 27, 2016)

hello,
I have a 2001 Nissan frontier, 2wd, 4 door, 6cyl 3.3L.
I have a battery drain problem I have been working on and now am stumped.
I can not post wiring diagram attachments but have been using wiring diagrams from ebsco which looks to be Haynes or chiltons manuals.
so I did the battery drain test and got a 134Ma-144Ma reading by connecting between negative terminal and connector. after pulling fuses I was able to narrow it to

(fuse J, 80amp fuse) Labeled (FL 80A IGN-1 SW (B+)) as labeled on the fuse box cover. by removing this fuse it lowers the battery draw approximately 80Ma.

also by removing

(fuse E, 40amp fuse) Labeled (FL 40A IGN SW) as labeled on fuse box cover. by removing this it lowers the draw by 40Ma.
with both fuses out I have a normal battery draw reading of around 20Ma.

unplugging one or the other separately does not remove draw completely only by 80Ma or 40Ma or 120Ma by removing both.

where I'm getting stumped is when trying to chase down the problem to the cause of the draw. 
after unplugging the ignition switch (where the key goes in) at the connector under steering column, Wire colors: (wht/blu, red/ylw, blk/ylw, grn/ylw, blk/wht, grn.)
this removes power drain from the 80A fuse but not from the 40A fuse. this is about as far as I am able to get at this point.

any help would be much appreciated.
thank you


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## smj999smj (Jan 1, 2006)

Chasing down a parasitic draw can be a real pain! You're on the right track. Make sure that when you test for parasitic draw that everything is turned "off" and, if necessary, disable the door switch if you need to have the door open for testing. At this point, you'll need wiring diagrams that show every circuit that is powered off of those two fusible links (the 40 amp and 80 amp). Concentrate on one at a time. You'll need to monitor the draw as you disconnect one component at a time from that particular circuit until you identify which one is drawing.


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## boardrider036 (Mar 27, 2016)

Yeah its getting pretty confusing, especially since I don't know how to read a wiring diagram!

Updates:

on the original post I misspoke and with the ignition unplugged the power draw from the 40A was eliminated, not the 80A as I originally said (the 80A and 40A fuses are under hood fuse box)

I disconnected the alternator, and starter, no luck, no power draw eliminated.
I'm thinking of trying the accessory and ignition relays but am not able to find where they are as none of them seem to be labeled.

disconnecting under dash fuse 7 Labelled: (starter signal 7.5A/ST) eliminates 40A power draw
disconnecting under dash fuse 28 Labelled: (ELEC B 7.5/BAT) eliminates 80A power draw
there is also a plug in relay directly above the under dash fuse panel (1 of 3) the far left of the 3 that when unplugged eliminates the 40A power draw

I'm thinking of testing the accessory and ignition relays but am not able to locate where they are exactly as they are not labelled?


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## BRubble (Jun 22, 2014)

Are all of your Light's, particularly your outside light's, working properly? Overtime,, the socket's tend to get corroded where moisture gets in.

good luck


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## boardrider036 (Mar 27, 2016)

yeah the lights work fine


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## OhmsLaw (Mar 29, 2016)

At 140 mA it might take a month B4 your battery is too weak to crank, but if the max spec is 20 mA this may be a big problem in the making.

You are doing this systematically so, in principle at least, you should soon find the problem. 

It gets tricky if more than one component is contributing to the current draw. 
Also, connectors may become intermittent once you disturb them and so the problem comes and goes. A component draws too much current but a rusty connection prevents you from seeing it.

If heating an electronic component with a hair dryer (carefully) shows a large increase in leakage current, this may be it. I can't see electromagnetic components like relays or vehicle horns or fan motors doing this kind of thing unless water has gotten in.

if you can scan in an image maybe we can help with reading schematic symbols, but confirming that you have a correct schematic may be difficult.

BTW, my local library has an AutoData Service that is available online for us. They told me it was cheaper than keeping books on the shelf. So far I have only used it for our Subaru.


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## Roader (Nov 9, 2014)

*FSM*

http://www.********.com/FSM/Frontier/2001/


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## Roader (Nov 9, 2014)

Nico Club(dot)com, no space


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## boardrider036 (Mar 27, 2016)

yeah I found this also though I'm not very good at reading diagrams so not having much luck narrowing it down.


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## OhmsLaw (Mar 29, 2016)

High school or college geeks may help you, and there should be a legend somewhere on the diagram.

Post a small chunk of a diagram showing typical symbols. You'll at least see wire colors and wire gauges.

It'll be easier if you can find a clamp-on DC ammeter that can read these small currents. 
If you don't mind cutting & splicing wires, with everything off you can put in a resistor temporarily and measure the voltage across it to figure the current. 
A one ohm resistor is not too large for this problem, and would read 140 mV or less with your leakage currents.

If something goes wrong, better to smoke a resistor than a meter or its internal fuse.


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## Roader (Nov 9, 2014)

I guess I'd keep going on the 80mA draw. That 80A fuse powers six more fuses, according to the wiring diagram. Can you narrow the majority of that 80mA draw to one of those six fuses?


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## OhmsLaw (Mar 29, 2016)

If the fuses were all the same in some sense, pull half of the six to narrow the choices. Pick your three at random.

But, pulling just #28 does reduce the powered devices by half and if #28 powers very few electromagnetic components and more components containing semiconductors, the odds are even better.


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## Roader (Nov 9, 2014)

Huh. I guess I didn't notice the OP saying that pulling fuse #28 got rid of the 80mA draw. That should make things easy.



Vehicle Speed Sensor can just be unplugged.
FLS1 through FLS3: Fuel Level Sensor? There should be a convenient place to unplug this w/o getting to the top of the tank.
It shouldn't be too difficult to unplug the various auto trans connectors.
All the EL locations are shown in the EL section of the FSM.


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## OhmsLaw (Mar 29, 2016)

I didn't think about ease of access to the connection point. It changes the strategy for vehicle wiring.

-Connector in plain view that is very likely to cause the problem? Need you ask? 


-Connector in plain view that is very unlikely to cause the problem? Yeah, I'd pull it.


-Connector difficult to access that is very unlikely to cause the problem? The last one I'd try.


-Connector difficult to access that is very likely to cause the problem? This is what usually happens, Murphy's Law.


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## boardrider036 (Mar 27, 2016)

update:

Thank you for all the good leads and tips, I will start on it today and will reply with updates as I proceed, should have some more updates in the next day or two.


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## boardrider036 (Mar 27, 2016)

update:

with my limited knowledge I am having a hard time following wiring diagrams and finding their locations on the truck, I think I have unplugged the speed, fuel, and transmission connectors but am not positive. disconnected alternator and starter, disconnected most of the under the hood plugs that were easily accessible, the connectors I did unplug did not give any results though.
I think I will give up and just unplug the battery when I'm not using the truck. 
incase someone wants to keep trying to help (which I would be happy to try) here are the most current results/problems.

>(fuse J, 80amp fuse) Labeled (FL 80A IGN-1 SW (B+)) as labeled on the fuse junction box cover. removing this fuse lowers the battery
draw approximately 80Ma.
>(fuse E, 40amp fuse) Labeled (FL 40A IGN SW) as labeled on fuse junction box cover. removing this lowers the draw by 40Ma.

with both fuses out I have a normal battery draw reading of around 20Ma

40A
>disconnecting under dash fuse 7 Labelled: (starter signal 7.5A/ST) eliminates 40A power draw
>there is also a plug in relay directly above the under dash fuse panel (1 of 3, the far left of the 3) that when unplugged eliminates the
40A power draw (I believe it is ignition relay)
>unplugging ignition switch(where key goes in) from under dash plug removes 40A power draw.

80A
>disconnecting under dash fuse 28 Labelled: (ELEC B 7.5/BAT) eliminates 80A power draw.


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## OhmsLaw (Mar 29, 2016)

boardrider036 said:


> I think I will give up and just unplug the battery when I'm not using the truck.


Or put a connector rated at 80A in series with the 80A fuse. 

With a 100 A-h battery drained at 0.14 A ideally it'll take ~700 hours to completely drain the battery and you might have trouble cranking after two weeks of non-use.
If you have a hydrometer you can confirm the drain, and there are State of Charge vs. Voltage tables on the Web. It might still crank at 50% charge.

You sure about the 20 mA spec? I've heard of cars that take 0.1 A, for all the gadgets.


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