SM465 Leak Help

[werewolfx13]

As I recall, a stock harness has one or two fusible links in the first 6" of wire starting at the battery cable on the starter solenoid. I would not swear to that or any other aspect of the factory harness, as I dont clearly remember the factory harness from my 83 c10, and it now has a painless harness, and my 76 k20 has a heavily modified 87 v20 harness. Replacement is commonly done by using a roughly 6-7" section of the appropriate size of fusible link wire (2 gauge size smaller than the wire its protecting), soldering a ring terminal (if applicable) to one end, and soldering the other end to the harness (*please* use heat shrink tubing with heat sensitive adhesive, or double seal your connection by using a liquid electrical tape/black rtv under standard heat shrink, or a high quality electrical tape such as 3m #88, or if not available, #33 under an extra long length of standard heat shrink)

[tc197]

Had a pretty miserable weekend trying to fix this problem. The truck is being so weird and I have cut wires/spliced wires everywhere from the p/o. I might just start a new thread in a more appropriate location.

If i pull the headlight switch i lose all power to my ignition and dash. Blinkers, wipers, ac blower all still work. If i dont touch the headlight switch and try to start the truck it cranks longer than usual, fires up, and immediately dies. At one point this weekend it all of a sudden started up great and ran for 15 minutes. I started cleaning up tools since it was getting late when suddenly it died again and i was back at square one.

This weekend i replaced 1 fusible link that was cracked, replaced the headlight switch, swapped in a second steering column with no luck so i went back to the original, sanded every ground i could find so there was no rust, checked continuity across all the fusible links i could find, pulled out the junction box near the booster and reconnected it, and wiggled every wire i could find.

I know the truck will start when the engine light comes on with the key switched on. If i switch the key on and dont get the check engine light it will crank until the check engine light comes on and then start after. In all cases it immediately dies. Theres no rhyme or reason to when the engine light will be on. Sometimes if i turn the headlights on and off the light wont come on for an hour, sometimes it will come on no matter what i do. At this point i feel like im causing/ creating the potential for more problems than im fixing. For instance when i swapped the steerint column i found part of the firewall was rusted through and some chunks of rust broke free leaving some holes.

My thought right now is that the truck is being shorted out and wont give me the engine light until the motor starts cranking over increasing the current. Once it finally starts the current draw decreases and it dies out again due to the short. Is that a reasonable statement? I dont have any clue where to go with this next.

[tc197]

http://forum.73-87chevytrucks.com/smforum/index.php?topic=33738.0

new thread in the electrical section now.