Coloradogoose

I have a 1986 G20 with the 5.0 and I went to fire it up for a camping trip and there was no power. I pulled the battery and hooked up jumper cables to my jeep and directly to the battery leads and still nothing. The lights don't come on, none of the alarm bells ding, and of course it doesn't start. I'm hoping it's something like a main fuse or relay that I can replace, but I don't know this vehicle very well so I'm not sure where to start. What I do know is that when I opened the hood I noticed that there was an aux wire that caused a short going from the positive terminal of the battery to the body of the van. The wire was still in good shape. It hadn't melted from too high of voltage passing through it but I suspect that's what caused this problem and is also what killed the battery. Any thoughts? Thanks for the help.

canucklehead

Replace the battery, and then you can test your fuses and so on.

Coloradogoose

I actually picked up a battery this afternoon since I'm assuming the old one is trashed. I'm not finding any bad fuses. I only found one relay and it was under the drive side dash by the fuse box and it is fine. Thoughts on where to go next?

oldchevy

When you say a wire from the positive terminal to the body of the van, do you mean going somewhere inside the van or do you mean to a metal part of the body? This wire could be the wire that powers the van. You did not say if the fuses were good or not. If this wire goes inside the van and is not grounded, it would need to be hooked back up to the positive terminal. Need more information.

Coloradogoose

The aux wire is spliced into the main battery cable. It is an aftermarket add on by the PO to provide power to interior lighting. (It's not the way I would have done it, but I haven't taken the time to change it yet.) It was protected by an inline fuse, however the fuse box is what got closed in the hood. This aux wire is attached to the positive battery cable about a foot down from where the positive cable connects to the battery. Just in-case this caused a problem I tried connecting the two ends of the aux wires together without the crushed fuse box. It didn't help.
All of the fuses are fine. I pulled every single one, did a visual inspection, and then tested it for continuity with my volt meter. I'm still lost as to what to check next. Thanks.

canucklehead

Check your vehicle ground strap......maybe rusty.

Coloradogoose

Been a few days since I've had a chance to check things. No rust on the ground strap. I'm hoping to have some time this weekend to give everything another good look. I'm still lost on this one.

solwav

You may have more than one issue but no power with a charged battery I second the likely ground problem.