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Old Nov 27, 2013 | 08:25 PM
  #1  
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No electrical power

Truck ran fine yesterday. Go out to get in it today and the dome and door lights do not come on. No chime when inserting key, turn key and nothing. No dash lights, no head lights, no clicks, no buzz. Absolutely nothing.

I checked and the battery has 12.8Vdc. Both master fuses on the firewall read good. All fuses in the under hood fuse box read good. I am confused.

Any thoughts on where to start looking?
 
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Old Nov 27, 2013 | 08:32 PM
  #2  
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Here's the answer that always pissed me off when somebody mentioned it, but I cannot tell you how many times they've been right when it happened to me. Go unhook both battery terminals and clean them very well with one of those cleaning tools, even if they don't look bad. The same exact thing happened to me back in the summer right in the middle of the day after I had used my truck earlier in the day. My neighbor told me to clean em. I told him he was crazy, but I'd do it anyway. He got the last laugh.
 
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Old Nov 27, 2013 | 08:48 PM
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I thought about that, but since I put a new battery in the truck less than a a week ago, cleaned the terminals, and used dielectric grease when doing the install I have my doubts about that helping.

With that said, I will do it anyway once I have daylight to work with.
 
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Old Nov 28, 2013 | 06:00 AM
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Use your voltmeter to measure across what should be solid connections (engine block to negative post, positive post to mega fuse, etc).

A good connection will read zero volts, a bad or "open" connection will read your battery voltage. You probably gave a corroded cable or cable connection. The negative cable's connection to the vehicle would be my first suspicion.
 
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Old Nov 28, 2013 | 10:58 AM
  #5  
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Found the problem. The wire from the battery terminal to the Solenoid on the firewall had corroded at the solenoid. Soldered new terminal onto battery cable and all is good.

Thank you all for your help and advice.
 
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Old Nov 28, 2013 | 03:04 PM
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Good. It always amazes me how one little area of corrosion can mean the difference between a perfectly running machine and a big dead hunk of metal.
 
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