Hello fellas, I recently purchased a 1980 f100 ranger. o love the truck however she's has been a handfull...im no expert mechanic im just a simple do it your selfer..Me and my pops always worked on car's together restored a couple aswell just me and him...Well he's passed on now and this is my first project.She left me on the side of the road first day i got her.... Vacuum lines not hooked up, Distributor was not fastened down etc. i fixxed all that and she left me on the side of the road again....Dead battery due to not charging....of course i bought a new ALT, VR. Tightened all mu grounds...Have to admit i new nothing about the electrical. So for the past week ive been reading , reading. and watching videos.....im very aquainted now with the situation. My problem is the dummy light somewhere between there and the VR. I need this truck to work so i pulled 12v wire from the switch to the VR.I have every intentions on fixcen that in the near future....Now ...I put a ground on my ALT and RV since they have one and when i started the motor The grounds on the ALT and VR went up in smoke...The VR works perfectly just layin on the fender...I hqve no idea why they both melted the grounds....obviously theres a wiring issues....just seein if anyone else has had this happen.....Shes got a 302 e speed auto believe C4 and has the duraspark distributor. with motorcraft 2 barrell elect choke...Id like to say thank you to all y'all it has been great bein able to get on here and learning about anything i need to know about my truck

 

Sounds like your large ground from the battery to the engine block is poor. So when you use the starter, ground for the starter besides using the large wire is using the smaller wire you added. If you want to ground the regulator (It should have a ground in the harness) I would run a small ground from the regulator bolt to the battery negative itself. The alternator is grounded through the mounting brackets to the engine block.

I would double check your large ground wire. Especially the connection where it bolts to the block.

 

The VR absolutely must electrically "see" a good solid ground reference, the same ground potential as the negative battery post. Same with the alternator/engine block. Loose, missing, or corroded ground straps and connections mean Trouble In Alternator City.

 

Dave, I'm pretty sure the voltage regulator is only grounded where it bolts to the inner fender. That's marginal at best. I'm not seeing any ground in the harness:

Charge & Power Distribution - Gary's Garagemahal (the Bullnose bible)

That's 1981, and I know 1980 had some major wiring changes, but hopefully it's close.

Is the starter speed slow and uneven, or is it strong and robust? If not good, run this quick test of the starter circuit:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...w-starter.html

As Dave has suggested, it sounds like the starter circuit overloaded your new ground wires. Grounding the alternator and regulator is still an excellent idea, but the starter circuit has to be in good shape first.

 

The starter slowed and sounded like a week battery, untill the wires melted into then it went back to normal...The truck runs good cold , hot 1 to 2 cranks and she runs like sewing machine.

 

Hmm, this doesn't match what would happen with a marginal connection in the starter circuit, specifically on the ground side. I think something else is going on.

If you had a bad connection between the battery's (-) post and the starter body, here's what would happen:
1) Previously, the starter would have cranked slowly and struggled.
2) After adding the extra ground wires (basically in parallel with the big ground cable), some of the massive current flow for the starter would follow this easier path. The wires would have smoked only when you tried to engage the starter. The starter speed would not have changed much at all.

But you didn't have that. Not even close. You said the starter speed had previously been good, but it struggled with the addition of the new wires until they burned up.

Can you please post pictures of exactly how you connected these extra ground wires? And when exactly did they start overheating? As soon as you connected the battery? Was it when the starter was first engaged? Or was it after the engine was running? It seems as if at least one of these wires somehow provided a direct path to ground from the battery's (+) post. This unintentional extra load on the battery is what slowed down the starter, until the wire burned up and current flow stopped via that path. With this extra load gone, starter speed returned to normal. Pics would really help.

 

I think you are correct. I did find they have a ground G756 which is supposed to go to the bolt under the starter solenoid. That must be what the other components used over there also.

 

Dave, remember there's no need to type that out. Think of the bandwidth constraints if everybody did that every time I was correct. I don't want to be responsible for bogging down the whole internet.