88 no power, complete power failure, help!

[sjten10]

I have an 88 Chevy K1500. It sat for 2 years as money was saved and some minor work was done to the frame in that time. The truck ran when parked. Went to attempt to fire it up and nothing! Figured the battery was dead I put jumpers on it and still nothing! No reaction from the dash, interior lights, starter, nothing.

I talked to the guy that did the minor frame work, patching a small hole. He did it where the truck was sitting via welder. I asked if he had disconnected the battery, no he didn't. He said he has never had issues welding on the frame before especially the very rear of a vehicle.

Any suggestions on what I could do to eliminate possible causes? I checked all the blade fuses in the cab, all good. Did notice 2 metal cased fuses, didn't check those with a tester...could those have blown? What other possible fuses ect would cause complete power failure that I could check?

The truck isn't worth a lot but wanted to restore it, now I'm dumbfounded by what to do about this complete power failure. If the welder fried the ECM would that cause complete power failure?

Thanks for the help

 

[arrg]

Do you have power at the junction block on the firewall under the hood? With no power anywhere, you're likely missing a connection either for the battery-engine ground cable or the battery-junction block power cable. Start there.

 

[sjten10]

Do you have power at the junction block on the firewall under the hood? With no power anywhere, you're likely missing a connection either for the battery-engine ground cable or the battery-junction block power cable. Start there.

No power at the junction box on any of the posts with key on or off. Looks like I'm going to check battery cable connections first and go from there. Thanks.

 

[Hipster]

If the battery there has been froze and/or internally damaged somehow putting a jump box or trying to jump through a bad battery won't accomplish much. Start with a known good battery. Running a truck with a bad battery can cook the altenator so there's that. An improper ground on a welder can send the ground path through another circuit and take out an ecm but it normally doesn't kill power everywhere but I don't think that's the case and you're not that far in the diagnostic process yet to make a determination.

 

[Madscientist]

Save yourself alot of wasted time and headaches and get a new battery. make sure your contacts are clean and you have a good connection. Check your ground cable too and make sure it has a clean connection on the frame and or motor. welding on it will not cause any problems especially if the ground is close to your working area.

 

[sjten10]

Thanks for the help. I'll be picking up a new battery and cables this week. My guess is these cables are at least 15-20 yrs old if not 32 so I'm ruling them all out before digging deeper into this. I wasn't sure if a fried ECM would/could kill all power everywhere or not which was my biggest concern.

 

[sjten10]

So I went to get battery cables finally and the guy at the store recommend I bring in the old ones to confirm I'm getting the right ones. I believe the cables on the truck are far from factory and I don't even think they were run right. Starting to believe a lot of shoddy work was done on this truck. My question is can someone with a similar year truck post picks of where these cables probably should be ran or point me to a decent routing plan and are there any axillary wires or is the positive cable just a single cable running to the switch? Thanks for the help.

 

[PlayingWithTBI]

My question is can someone with a similar year truck post picks of where these cables probably should be ran or point me to a decent routing plan

IMHO, if you're gonna go there, get the big 3 upgrade and eliminate any possibility of that being your issue. @5vortec7 can help you there...

https://www.gmt400.com/threads/big-3-and-dual-battery-kits.41818/

 

[sjten10]

IMHO, if you're gonna go there, get the big 3 upgrade and eliminate any possibility of that being your issue. @5vortec7 can help you there...

https://www.gmt400.com/threads/big-3-and-dual-battery-kits.41818/

Thank you, I'll check it out.

 

[arrg]

If you just want basic, look up Standard Motor Products A422DDF, AC Delco 2SD42XE, or AC Delco 2SX41F2. Any of those will get you the battery-starter, battery-junction block, and battery-alternator connections all in one harness. You should have a battery-engine ground cable (large gauge wire) that connects somewhere near the front passenger side of the engine. There's an engine to frame ground strap (thick braided metal strap not a wire) running from the engine to the frame in the same general area.

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There's a battery-body ground (small gauge wire) running from the battery negative post to the passenger fender.

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Last, there's a engine-firewall ground strap (thin braided metal strap not a wire) running from the back of the passenger side cylinder head to a stud down by the heater hoses on the firewall.

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