So the interior dome light was left on in my 1984 302 F-150 and the battery died. I pulled the wife's car over to jump start the old Ford and in a moment of retardation I reversed the "+" and "-" jumper cables between the two vehicles. The wife's vehicle is just fine, mine didn't do to well.

Smoke came from the general area of the starter relay and after a little looking around I found the reminants of a 16ga fusible link that had vanished. I went to my garage and grabbed a short section of 12ga romex and stuck it into the air space that is suppose to be protected with the fusible link. I re-jumped the truck and it started right up. Then I had my second moment of retardation. With the truck running I reached under the hood and removed my 12ga splice. The truck immediately stopped and I haven't been able to get it started since.

I've replaced the fusible link. I've put in a new battery and a new coil. The engine turns over just fine but I can't get a spark out of the coil. All of the fuses under the dash are good. Is there some other section of fusible link somewhere that I fried? Could I have fried my ignition module?

 

I understand there are two or three of those links in the same general area....

 

Start by seeing if there's any power to the positive side of the coil. Check both in run and crank.

 

Thanks for the input. I had power on the positive side of the coil but couldn't get anything to out on the negative side. I took a chance and swapped out the ignition module and got lucky. The old beast is back to starting everytime.