'78 C10 (Big 10) Won't Start, Electrical Problem

Apr 24, 2007 3 Replies
S

I have a 1978 C10 (Big 10) with an inline 6 cylinder 250, 3-speed on the floor. It's been my daily driver for several months now.



I got home from work today and turned it off. I then realized I had meant to head out behind the house to unload my tiller and (almost immediately) tried to start it back up and.....nothing. No clicking, no gauge lights (you know how they come on when you first start your car), no noise at all, nothing. Even the headlights wouldn't come on.



Before the headlight symptom sunk in I tried jump starting it from my other truck...no good. Cleaned the battery contacts...no good. Cleaned the starter wire connectors and made sure they were tight...no good. It's like power is not getting to anything even though the battery seems ok and even the jump start didn't help.



Any ideas on this one? know where I can get a wiring diagram? know where the fusible link(s) is(are)?


Being my daily driver I'm in a bind (the inspection is out on the other truck for various reasons) so any help is much appreciated.



Thanks in advance....



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S

Nevermind......turns out there were a couple of problems.

Loose negative battery screw (another reason to dislike sidemount battery terminals) that seemed tight but was really not in correctly. No telling how long that had been working towards failure. Fixed it and this got the lights back on.

The clutch startup safety interlock wasn't making connection when the clutch was pressed to the floor like it should've. Once I messed with it a while I found that keeping the clutch about halfway out got the truck started. I'll be replacing that today.

Lessons learned. Thanks.....

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W

fusible links are at the starter, should be two to three that year on the same connection as the main cable from the battery at the starter. If you put a test light on the main starter terminal are you getting any power? If so try piercing the smaller wires at least 8 inches away from the starter and see if there is any power. (You do not want to pierce the "fuse" area of the links).

Whitelightning

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K

When I bought my 1977 C20 over 30 years ago, this was the first thing that I disabled. Sometimes when doing engine work, it made life easier to simply lean thru the window and turn the ignition key (with the transmission in neutral), than to have to open the door and step on the clutch, and then turn the key.

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