First time ever doing this. I installed the battery cables backwards. The starter relay arced out and the little brown ground wire melted the insulation. The truck has the wrong battery in it, came installed with the truck, and the poles are reversed. I had removed the battery to do other things. The battery has marine type clamps on it that covered up the markings on the battery.

Now, I have replaced the start relay and fixed the melted wire. I still am not getting any juice to anything, no lights. Completely dead. The battery is charged. I assume the fuzable link to the altinator is fried but would that cause a complete dead system? I inspected the wiring in the engine compartment and under the dash. No blown fuzes either. What am I missing? Thanks..

 

You have reversed-biased the alternator diodes and fried them. If you have "no juice" anywhere there must be an open wire, possibly the supply to the ignition switch.
You can also jump to the S terminal in the solenoid to see if it cranks. A connection may be burnt even though the wire checks out on the ohmmeter.
Your problem should not be hard to find. Fix and report back.
Doing what you did is very dangerous.

 

Yeah, I know. I just touched the negative wire to the post and it arced. Now to find my ohm meter. It is packed up somewhere to take to my summer home...The wiring to the altinator has a fuzable link to protect against what I did. I will track down a replacement tomorrow..

 

When I jumped the starter solenoid, the starter cranked. From the description stated in the Chilton manual, the fuzable link is toast. Now, to replace the link and go from there...

I have a 1972 Ford truck manual on CD. When I upgraded to windows 10, the file got corrupted and windows won't let me repair or reload the CD. Bummer...

 

Yes, that is good news and logical.
I have thought about your situation. I think the arc in the solenoid was from the S terminal back into the switch. Even though the switch was off there may have been an arc into the main power lead to blow the fusible link.
Anything that has transistors would be suspect- ignition modules, voltage regulator.
If I were you, I would replace the fusible link, regulator, alternator and ignition switch. And lift all connectors, check, sand, tighten. Not a whole lot of money but chasing down stuff piece-by-piece will cost you a weekend.
In a situation like yours involving hundreds of amps there are large voltage transients that can jump switches.
Go and sin no more. Please report back so we can add your experience to our knowledge base.

Semper Fi

 

manual on CD should be in PDF format . install latest Adobe reader . Upgrading to windows 10 should not have any effect on a finalized CD .

 

My ignition on this truck is points and condenser. No headlights either so it may be the ignition switch. I will hit the parts store in a bit.

As far as my CD manual goes, I could access it easily before loading windows 10. I also updated acrobat dc. When I bought this manual on cd, I thought I could just access the info from the disc. But no, I had to load it on the computer. I will try to uninstall it and start over. One of the flags I get is that I am not authorized to use the manual. Go figure..

 

Windows 10 has had some odd bugs, especially in the registry. Have held off upgrading for that reason. But if you have web access, you should be able to search for a fix for your specific problem.

 

Last week I believe someone on here said NOT to install windows 10. And gave instructions on how to uninstall it if you already have.
On the truck, there are multiple fuseable links connected to the battery side of the solenoid. Replace them all. You haven't replaced the suspect one yet.

 

YEAH that was me , as OP already installed wasn't going to bring it up .
you can easily revert back to previous OS ,If you just did the upgrade and not a clean install .
just go to Restore (search restore with Cortana) choose option to undo win 10 upgrade

 

All fixed. I replaced the fuzable link. Lights came on and the truck started. Alt gauge shows charging. I saw on another post when I searched fuzable link problems that if the linnk is blown, the truck is completely dead. That is what I had. I am going to pick up another link to keep in the tool box. The link I bought came with a splice and eyelet to install. Thanks for all the help you guys gave me. Now to get plates and drive it......

 

Glad to hear it. And thanks for the closure.

 

Yes, exactly as Jeff above. Thank you for closing out.
You have reminded us what fuses are for. It could have been a lot worse.

 

A few weeks ago I read that the early Windows 10s you will not be able to read CDs or watch DVDs but later versions you will. Windows 10 will be like Vista which was a royal pain in the butt, mostly with compatibility issues. I said forget that, I'll stick to my 7 and if this goes down, I have a refurbished one that is 7.

 

I had the same exact problem with my shop manual cd. I called the publisher, and he gave up trying to get it to work, and sent me a cd that I could just pop in the drive and bring it up on the screen.