Basic 70's wiring question
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Basic 70's wiring question
My 73 F-250 has a short. Disconnecting the main fat black wire with the yellow stripe from the solenoid eliminates the short. Of course, it eliminates all my power too since its the main power lead. After pulling all my fuses, the short remains. Now I think the black/yellow striped main power feed runs directly to the fusebox, which means the short is in the wire along the way somewhere. I just wanted to verify that this wire does run directly from the solenoid to the fusebox with nothing comeing of it along the way. If this is the case I'll just run a new line from the fusebox to the solenoid. Just wanted to check before I started cutting. My memory isn't what it used to be 
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From: Virginia
You said "short" but this means different things to different people. I am going to guess that you have a drain that is draining your battery down? If so, you should pull the alternator wires off, and see if the drain goes away. Some trucks have a splice in the wire you are pulling off downstream, which goes to the alternator. And the alternator can have a bad diode, and can cause a drain. If you are having problems determining the cause, you can hook a testlight up like the picture below, and start pulling wires and fuses like you have been doing, and quickly see when you have found the culprit.
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The problem is my electrical system is deader than a doornail. I hooked up a light just like in your diagram above and it lit up. However, when I pull of the black/yellow striped wire off the solenoid the light goes off. This is what made me think I had a short in this line. I'll keep disconnecting stuff but I haven't had any luck. I'll keep you posted and thanks for the help.
Last edited by Russ T. Trombone; Nov 20, 2005 at 07:17 PM.
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No, its not the alt, I already isolated that. Its somewhere downwind of that main power feed, and since its still shorting out with every fuse pulled and the ignition switch removed....guess I'm pulling off my dash and going exploring. Yippe! 
Thanks for the input though. I won't be surprised to find that somebody did make a poor splice into it. Couldn't find it from below which is why I'm pulling the dash. I guess I'll just take this opportunity since I'll have the dash pulled to clean up all my wiring.
Thanks for the input though. I won't be surprised to find that somebody did make a poor splice into it. Couldn't find it from below which is why I'm pulling the dash. I guess I'll just take this opportunity since I'll have the dash pulled to clean up all my wiring.
