Electrical Problem

Yesterday, returning to my friend’s house I tried starting my truck and it wouldn’t. I figured I had a dead battery but it was strange because I had left no lights on. So we hooked up jumper cables and he started his truck. I turned my ignition to see if it would start and I saw smoke coming from the passenger side of the engine compartment. I immediately turned the ignition off and went and looked and it was smoking, the smoking stopped. I pulled a cover off and I saw that something had been burning. We looked it over and tried jumping it again but still nothing. I looked and right next to the engine coolant tank there was a black panel covering over some wires that are attached to bolts. The black wire has burnt all the way threw and the others just someone simmered. My friend’s dad says that it might be something wrong with a solenoid or the starter. I pulled both the engine and the battery fuses and they both looked alright to me. The truck is still sitting there because I had got an estimate of 75 dollars just to tow it and then at least 50 to look at it. Does anyone have any suggestions of what to do or what is wrong with it I would greatly appreciate it, My dads going out to look at it in a bit so if any one knows anything it would be greatly appreciated. Also the headlights interior lights and all of that are working its just the engine wont turn over or anything like that so i dont think its to serious.

Thanks,

Kevin

Bad ground sound like and the power is seeking ground thru an undersize wire, check both ends of you battery ground cable.

Just like maxwedge said, check all the grounds.

Well that is the power distribution block, can you tell me exactly which wire and which stud it is on or do you know? If you can, and if it stops raining I will go out and look on my 88, it should be the same and I can try to help....There should be no grounds in that area of the truck. Your truck may be shorting to ground though.

I do not know which one it is; I know it is a black wire. I’m going to look for grounds when I go back out there and there might be a short I have caused in the cigarette plug that I’m going to make sure isn’t still shorting. My dads an engineer and he have talked to one of the master electricians there and they think it could be a short. My dad has got more of the fusible wire so were probably going out later today to look at it. Thanks for all the help so far hopefully get this problem solved by the end of the weekend.

- Kevin

Update, we have gone and looked at my truck and the only possible short we thought we had was the cigarette adapter but there was none. My truck reads good battery power and everything lights up, the only problem is it won’t crank. We re did the fusible cable link that had burnt up and tried to start my truck. The wire got hot almost immediately. The wire is a black 1.8 wire that goes threw something into a larger red wire it is second from the left on the power distributor block facing inside the engine compartment, Any suggestions?

- Kevin

Would this be facing the cab or facing the road as if you were driving......I'll go look and see where this goes on mine.

Say if you were standing in front of the engine compartment, There is the engine coolant on the left (Passenger side) besides that there will be a black cover. If you take that off you can see the power distribution block. The wire that is burning up on mine is the second from the left it’s black and has a red on the block to. We are pretty sure that maybe the starter might be shot/solenoid needs to be replaced.

- Kevin

Okay, I looked but on mine it just goes into the wire loom and an lose it. sorry.

Its okay, thanks for the information. We have decided just to have it towed in and looked at. We think its somewhere in the starter area and having in parked in just a shit load of mud wont help as far as me or my dad getting under there and fixing it. They might look at it today if not ill know by the end of Monday.

- Kevin

it should say ontop of the plastic cover the junction box has a black and red wire and black so you may check it and it might tell you (may be fuel pump relay)

The electrical problem turned out to be a bad ignition switch, $50 part, $300 dollars total in labor parts and tow I got fucked.

- Kevin