Can anyone tell me the natural draw of amps out of the battery while at rest on a '97 F150, 5.4 litre. This one runs the battery down and i will troubleshoot with test light, amp meter and pulling fuses one by one to eliminate the culprit. Thanks ahead of time.

 

Natural parasitic draw should be around 20 milliamp to 200 milliamp depending on what the truck was equipped with originally and what may have been added. There isn't a hard and fast rule, but from the factory, on a '97, it shouldn't be much.

 

thanks.

 

The hard-&-fast rule is: anything over 50mA after 10 min of key-off is excessive. Most vehicles drop below that instantaneously, and the majority of others within 2 min.

 

i will have to purchase a digital amp meter. analogue not cuttin it. i did the test lite thing between the - post and cable, it was real brite til i pulled the #4 fuse, then it got real weak and pulses. ????

 

Without knowing how much current it takes to turn on your test light, that wasn't very informative. If you have an incandescent, it might take 50-500mA. If it's LED, it could work with less than 5mA, and the pulse might be due to a capacitor working normally. You need numbers from a meter.