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I took my woodie to a car show in early June and came home and put it in the garage, as usual. I tried to start it about three weeks later and the battery was deaded than a door nail. It wouldn't even budge the dash indicator, no lights, no dome light, no horn. Really dead. The battery is a 6v Optima I bought in August 2010. Has been great with tons on cranking power. I checked the headlights, which were off, and looked for anything else I might have forgotten that could have drained the battery, but nothing seemed to be on. With the ignition off, there really isn't much else on my car that can remain on. Very perplexing. The battery store confirmed the battery was absolutely dead, so the assumption is something is on that drained it. They revived it by putting a good Optima in-line with mine and put a charger on it (how the manufacturer recommends reviving a dead Optima). Seems fine now, but I am leary. The variable that concerns me is that I had a generator issue and swapped out parts from a spare and replaced the brushes at the same time. Then, the car show maybe two or three weeks later. I show no drain on the battery when hooked up now, and dash gauge goes way to charge for the first few minutes of driving, then settles a little right of the middle, but this still concerns me. I have a couple questions: The brushes are new and showed no signs of cracked or flaking insulation. Is there something I might have done to the generator to cause an intermitant short? If that were the case, would I not see that the battery was being drawn by looking at the dash guage with the car off? Could the armiture be shorting only at a certain position and is there a way I can test this? I have avoltage meter, but except for the vary obvious stuff, I am not adept at using it. Kind of like my wife with a screw driver. Is there a reliable way to tell if I have a constant drain with the car off? I have seen many threads on chasing down electrical issues on the forum. And electrical is not my strong suite (if i have one). But this car has been very reliable eletrically, so I am looking for the obvious stuff first. I have also seen a few comments on the web that the newer Optimas occassionally do have some kind of sudden death issues that nobody seems to understand, so it COULD be the battery, but I am not there yet.