Chocolate Milkshake! - Page 2

Yes sir, they are all connected. Let me shed a little more light on the subject. I was in a rush posting earlier.

After getting everything assembled, I tried cranking and she was misfiring and not turning over. After the trial and error process of the distributor system, I got it lined up correctly and tried again. It wasn''''t making the POOF noise of a misfire this time, and it sounded like just a dead battery attempt at starting. The battery guage read a little low, so we decided to push it out of the garage and get some juice from my wife''''s 2004 Blazer. We let the batteries equalize and tried to start again. It sounded like a champ trying to start, but just would not turn over. This time there wasn''''t a muffled misfire, it was just sounding like it wasn''''t getting air or fuel. Doing some quick checks, you could smell fuel on the plugs, and in the exhaust. The throttle body was checked and nothing was stuck closed. I''''m not entirely certain if I was getting a spark or not, but all lights and stuff worked. We tried to crank it a couple more times, and she wouldn''''t turn over. I turned the key off and thats when the electrical anomolies started happening. The lights started to flicker, and fade in and out. I decided to pull the key out and it continued to do this untill they faded and flickered out for good. Now when I put the key in the ignition, to ON, UTIL, START, whatever, nothing happens. Opening the doors doesn''''t turn on the interior lights. The vehicle is completely dead. My next step is to take the battery to the store and have them check it. Could I have destroyed that battery during the jump while trying to crank it a few times? We had it jumped correctly; it even worked very well for not starting. If the battery checks out good, then its time to break out the multimeter and perform some checks. If its not, then easy fix. Can anyone list the most probable cause of a complete power loss with a good battery to get me started? I''''m really starting to get frustrated. Changing the head gaskets went very easy, and putting it back together was a breeze. I guess I''''m paying now for the easy trip so far... and of course it has to be the electrical system. Any spark chasers out there, I need you to download your brains and send them to me. :) To answer Hanr3, both grounds to the back of the heads are reconnected. The ground to the frame was untouched, but I checked anyway and its fine.
 
EDIT: After talking to the friend that helped me, I asked him how he hooked up the batteries for the jump. I was in the drivers seat when he hooked them up; he said he went straight from battery terminal to terminal, not pos to pos and neg to ground. I guess taking the battery to autozone tomorrow will tell me if the battery was toasted; or if going straight from posts to posts will fry something important.

Its not ideal for batteries to hook them up direct, or rather not ideal for your electrical system. Take a look at your ground wire. Sounds like you may have fried it. That or the positive cable, one of them sounds like toast.
 
It could be the fuseable link too. You got no power to teh cab, start with the wiring between the cab and battery. Older trucks it goes through the starter.

My preliminary inspection of the wires;

• Negative cable is grounded out to the front frame, the engine block, and the wheel well area. All wires are intact and using a meter for continuity testing, the battery hookup lead showed continuity to all these areas.

• Opened up the fuseable link underneath the battery tray. Tested continuity on each bus; wires shot good.

• Took the battery to autozone for a test; said it was good to go, but has a low charge. I''m having them charge it and will see if electrics work once its charged and hooked back up.

Lets say that my battery wasn''t the problem. Where should I look for a potential problem, that would cause nothing to light up in the cab? I''m guessing start from the positive cable to the starter; make sure the starter is intact, or perhaps check resistance through the starter to make sure it isn''t ohming out? I would then guess to go from the starter to wherever the power runs from there, maybe the ignition......not sure where it goes from the starter.
Hmm.

I''m going to find a wiring diagram and see the path I need to follow. Are there any common fixes that I could be overlooking?

No need for further maintenance! Horray!

The auto parts store said the battery was fine, it just had a very low charge. I imagine it drained completely during the bad jumpstart attempt. I hooked up a battery charger to it while it was still uninstalled, left it overnight, and reinstalled the distributor. Took about 5-6 tries of dropping the distributor in to get it lined up right. Stupid EDI design, if you ask me. Anyway, got it in, and she cranked up on the first try.
Bled the coolant system as best I could, got the heater working, and she runs smooth. I did a motor flush and took care of that and remnant milkshake, and am now running Mobile 5w-30 synthetic. She still has hiccups like before the gasket change; but that will be for another thread, when I feel like working it. :)

Thank you all very very much for the replies, advice, and help. This forum was a great asset and I''ll look here to try to offer help to others. I hope my water pump removal and replacement how to thread can help someone out as much as you guys have helped me out.

Glad you got it all back together!!