I have a 79 F150 4X4 with a 400. The other day it started fine as normal and I drove it to a friends house about a mile away. Five mins later when I went to start it again there were no electronincs. All lights were gone, radio was gone and of course ignition was gone. First instinct was the battery. I tried to jump it and couldn't even get a dim light with the jumper cables hooked up. I am leaning towards a voltage regulator , however before I just start throwing parts at it I want to be sure. When I put my test light to the battery It has enough juice to light the light. I don't have a voltmeter so don't know how much it is putting out. Any suggestions would be helpful in my troubleshooting. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

Remove and clean both ends of both battery cables as a first step..

 

Thats a good first step and if that doesn't solve it check your ground wires next.

 

Just wanted to close this one out. I hate when I read threads on here of people having problems and they never come back and say what it was. I put a voltmeter on the batterey and it was reading t he proper voltage at the battery. The positive battery cable was reading 1.4 volts right before the connection to the solenoid. Further inspection found that my stator wire for the alternator was connected to a ground and The fusible link that was connected to the solenoid was blown. I replaced the fusible link, positive battery cable, cleaned all grounds, and wired alternator correctly and she fired right up. I hope this helps some people and thank you '78F250351m and raytasch for your assitance.

 

Happy ya figured it out. Thanks