Hooked up teh charger again and gave it another go at recharging the batteries. They seem to be holding their charge this time and the rapid mystery drain disapeared for the time being...very strange considering I didn't do anything...
With the batteries working again I also decided to swap in another relay in my glow system and remove teh dead factory glow relay (to try and rebuild later) and some of its wiring. Discovered that even if not using the factory glow system to fire the glow plugs, if you remove the factory 80 amp glow fuse (and/or disconnect the factory glow wire that goes from fuse to ecu) that the starter will not spin. What that means is even if installing a completely seperate glow system from factory like I did, you still need the factory Glow ECU to be hooked up and functioning to be able to start the vehicle. Also discovered that the fuse is brittle as hell after 15 years...simply tugging on it with my powerful vice like arthritic fingers shattered the plastic into bits (luckily the fuse is a $4 part at Napa).
Anyway much to the disapointment of the Surf I kept the insurance on the L400 and am giving it another chance. It ran well yesterday and today so just hoping that the mystery battery drain doesn't reappear at work...because getting stuck at work is the suck.
Good Ship 
