Re: [alfa] dead short condition

["David Jarman" <jarmanhome@xxxxxxx>]

First off, sincere thanks to those who commented on my inquiry, and who 
include Dean Cains, Paul Irvine, Tom Sahines, and trusted Alfa tech Bob 
Vollner at European Auto Specialists in Cincinnati, Ohio (you can't go wrong 
there if you need Alfa work done).  I've also appreciated reading the 
responses on battery drain from both Rex Chalmers and John Fielding.

In short, pun fully intended, I have fallen victim to the dreaded FLS... 
footwell lamp syndrome!  Now in all fairness to myself, no one has driven 
the car lately but me, because my wife was most definitely pregnant, and had 
a tummy of such a shape and size that she just couldn't sit down in her 
Spider, on either side!  I compared it to my own '91 Spider also, which 
showed no continuity at all across the positive cable to ground.  However, 
the passenger side lamp was switched ON, which accounted for the draining of 
the battery and the closed circuit which gave me the continuity on my VOM!  
I had checked the CD player, lamps, everything recently, but apparently 
either I myself, or our 8 year old boy had bumped the footwell lamp switch 
ON recently.  Case closed!

In the future, not only will I verify the switches once again, but I will 
take some good advice and approach this from a milliamp draw standpoint on 
the individual circuits.  Thanks again, fellows!

PS- I use a battery tender (from IAP) on our Spiders during the winter 
months, and it works as advertised keeping the batteries at max charge, 
regardless of temperatures in an unheated garage.

Dave Jarman
Lexington, KY
USA
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