LUVTruck.com

Help the wire gremlins are after me! After 2 days of nothing more than putting a volt meter on my truck I have killed it! It started with one tail light that was out. It was just rusted so I took it out and sanded it and it started working again......then the blinkers stopped working, nothing on either side....so i started putting my voltmeter to it, and I didn't see any power getting to it so I was guessing fusebale link? Well I decided to take the steering wheel off and check the switch and with nothing more than taking the wheel off now I can't turn the truck on at all. I turn the key (and the acc has power) and nothing now, dead as a door nail. The only thing left that works is the head lights. HELP! I don't even know what a fuseable link looks like let alone where to find them.

There is a fusible link near the battery. I think it is part of the starter motor relay If this one burns into, the whole truck is dead. If you re-connect it and try to start the truck and it burns into again, you know you have a short some where. Did you see a puff of smoke come out from under the hood near the battery before the truck died? I had this same problem on my truck. Once I located and fixed the short, I replaced the fusible link with a 12 ga fuse holder and a 30 amp fuse. That way a fuse is much easier to replace should this happen again.

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1962 Chevy C-10 Stepside-Rat Rod
1990 Chevy Suburban

The only way to combat violence is with greater violence!
Trying to please everyone is way to hard, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake!

It would REALLY help to tell us what your truck IS.

Jack

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'83 Isuzu P'up Diesel LS - Original Owner
JoeIsuzu@IsuzuPup.com
IsuzuPup.com

Check the fuse box, the box, not the fuses. The fuse holders are riveted to the terminals and don't make good contact. My 77 runs better since I soldered them that it has most of its life.

Sorry it's an 1980 mikado

Ok so I clened off all the grounds I could find, one on the right and left frame, the batt neg cable to the batt tray and all the fuse block connectors and where it mounts to the frame, still nothing. I also still can't find any sort of a fuseable link. Maybe someone removed mine? Also I can't find any cooked wires or smell any burnt wires.

I have a 1980 Mikado as well. Look at the positive battery cable, there should be a 10ga wire comming off of it into connector. Running out of that connector is two wires, another 10ga wire and the other wire is the fusible link. Thats the wire that should be burnt into. It has to be there or maybe it burnt to the point its just not visible. Thats the wire I replaced with the 12ga fuse holder and 30 amp fuse, making it easier if it ever happen again. Electrical is a pain But you have to find what is causing the short or this will just keep happening.

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1962 Chevy C-10 Stepside-Rat Rod
1990 Chevy Suburban

The only way to combat violence is with greater violence!
Trying to please everyone is way to hard, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake!

Thanks that is a HUGE help! I'll check that out tonight when I get home. Things started popping when I was trying to dig a busted bulb out of my tail lights so I think that is where the shorting began. Now can anyone tell me if / where a fusible link would be in relation do all my dash lights / blinkers? I have checked everything else and I believe I was reading on this site that it has a fusible link in it also.

I would look closely again at your fuse box as I believe you just have a blown fuse. When you shorted the tailight bulb it probably took out the fuse. Usually the rear lights circuit is the same fuse as your instument lights.
This is done as a warning/safety thing, no dash lights means no tail lights either. Probably #1 fuse in the fuse box.

No thats not it because the tail lights are one of the only things that still work. I regrounded the fuse box and replaced the fuses and it did nothing. Every switch I check has power where it should. I noticed tonight that my voltage regulator was super hot and I'm not even running the truck, could this be my problem? Another night of shooting wires and cleaning grounds and no progress I'm starting to run out of ideas. I jumped the starter and it still works but when you turn the key to acc nothing gets power. The acc switch has power but nothing powers up. When you turn the key to start I can see the 12v from the switch is good but it never makes it to the starter.

Have you looked at the back of the ignition switch? It's relatively easy to get to. Two screws hold the plastic panel to the dash, and there's 5 plugs on the backside of the switch. If you have anything hooked up that isn't stock, it might have put too much draw on the switch and burnt it (lol, my stereo is now on a relay...)

So, the things that should work with the key off are: the brakelights, headlights, the dome light, markerlights, horn, and there should be power at the positive side of the starter.

The first three fuses should be hot all the time, fuses 4 and 5 should be hot when the ignition is on, and the last fuse (closest to the firewall) should be hot when the key is in acc and when the ignition is on.

#4 connector on the regulator should be hot always.

Check the ground wires going from the battery to the engine.

Well, there's a few wiring harnesses on ebay last I checked...

Also, here is a wiring diagram for the 1980 LUV.

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1980 4X4 LUV daily driver, as stock as can be.

Oh, and definitely look into the voltage regulator... if it's hot, there's definitely something wrong.

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1980 4X4 LUV daily driver, as stock as can be.

Ok so 4 in the morning is not the best time to post. I don't think i was looking at my voltage regulator its my solenoid? It has the wire going to the top of the distributor. It was cooking hot and I think it may have a bad ground. If that wasn't getting good contact I would lose my power also correct? Right now my horn, headlights and tail lights work, but my side marker lights went out when my blinker stopped working. The person I got the truck from reoved the key and put in a push button start so I have some "custom" wires going on here. The only thing I can say is it did work the week before this and all the "custom" wires are new and are connected well/not loose. The ground to the block could be bad, I can't see it under the pile of crud it lives in but the volt meter said it was at least getting some contact.

Sounds like what you are describing being hot is the coil. It shouldn't be hot either.

With the custom wiring it will be real hard to tell what is going on.

Did you remember your clutch switch? Power will not reach the starter unless the clutch pedal is down. Just checking.

Alright, so, the coil being hot tells me one thing: your ignition is on. The coil is getting power to it, so, all other things ignored, your truck should run, but if the wiring problems are as bad as they sound, it won't idle.

If you can, show us pics of this "custom" wiring.

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1980 4X4 LUV daily driver, as stock as can be.

RE WIRE THE WHOLE DAMN TRUCK DUDE, TAKE A LOOM OUT OF AN EARLY S-10 OR S-15 AND YOULL BE GLAD YOU DID

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I've gone through changes.....

That's gonna be more work than just finding out what's wrong with what he's got.

Definitely take a closer look at that "custom" wiring... more than likely your problem was caused by that.

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1980 4X4 LUV daily driver, as stock as can be.

The fusebox aint supposed to be grounded. It's mounting bracket is just bolted to the inner fender well, and it has isolated wires coming in and out of it with fuses in between them.

You might want to take your wiring diagram for your truck to Kinkos, have them blow it up so you can read it better and plastic coat it for you. Money well spent IMHO.

Ok here is an update. The truck lives again! I had a friend come by today and after 7 stright hours (and a six pack) we got it going again. My friend knows all about points and dwell angles so he was able to really see the problems fast. The truck had the starter realy bypassed along with the resistor so all 12v was going in all the time. After rewireing the relay/resistor and doing what we could to clean up the points it started up again. Then we checked the dwell and it was like 35 or something crazy low so we set it back to factory and adjusted the carb and it runs 100000 times better now. After that we started running into every time we would remove some "custom" wires to get something working, something else would go out. My friend was over for 7 and after he left I worked for another 4 and now I'm down to just the heater not working. Sucks because it was working before we started. Not sure what we did but I guess I'm just going to have to stay at it. I did blow the diagram up and it was a major help. I'm not sure what has happened but now I'm looking at my voltage regulator. The original truck side of it looks like it was on fire at one point and is now missing some wires. The VR is after market and some of the wires go to the burned connection and some of them are spliced right in. Other than my blower not working would something else be out that would let me know the VR is cooked? It seemed like the few things that worked when I got the truck all started crapping out when I started fixing things like the circuts just don't like having a full load. Is their a good way of testing the heater to see where I'm missing my voltage? I can see the 2 wires to the blower and the 4 or 5 under the selector, I'm just not sure what I should be seeing on each of them. Thanks everyone for all the help! I'm working on getting pics up soon. And so far I have cleaned out 9 mud dobber nests! Go farm truck!