UPDATE: I did exploratory surgery on the pigtail, as mentioned in my last post.
Found out when I replaced the bargman plug, the red (right turn/stop) wire was joined by a cheezey crimp-style butt connector. Since I didn't have a right hand turn or stop, I went back in, removed my beautiful shrink wrap, soldered/lugged the red wire (no crimp connectors for me) and heat-shrink wrapped it back up.
Now there is no drain to the TC battery as before. Any of the stupid crimp-style butt connectors could have been the culprit (I cut all but one) or it may have been two of the badly-oxidized wires under all those miles of cheap electric tape that were only mildly shorting, but enough to cause a drain.
I cut off approx 4 feet of homemade extension, back to the rubber of the original pigtail, and all appears to be well.
Spent three nights boondocking in Central OR over the weekend, and with a family of four, dishes, furnace clicking on and off all night long, lights, CD player, jacks (first night) etc, I was getting about one day for each charge from my genset, which is livable.
Solar (at least 200 watts) is on my horizon...
