Tonight I was working on the '50 and made a rookie mistake that's gonna set me back a few hundred bucks...
I wanted to get the starter kicked over so that i'd know if it was mating correctly, so i got the battery out, hooked up the + to the starter, and... here's the mistake... grounded to the frame. when i jumped the starter posts, it engaged, but didn't seem like it was working right. Made a call to Bob68327 for some "tech support" and about half way through the call i noticed smoke coming from the top of the motor. after a "oh chit!" i jumped to undo the battery (while dropping my phone) and got it unhooked.
At first i thought the wiring harness was toast since smoke was coming from both the engine and from under the dash. none of the wires under the dash felt hot though. Then i looked at my engine to see my new lokar throttle cable smokin'. It was fried. so much so that it split when i tried to wiggle it free.
So that's all that fried... or so i thought....
15 or 20 min later i was on the phone with my brother talking about my F-up and i realized the front wheels wouldn't turn side to side when i pushed on the tire with my leg (whole truck is on jack stands). Then i grabbed the steering wheel. nothing, nadda, nu-uh. tugged a little more then i hear snap, crackle, pop!
Unfortunately none of my kids were behind me eating Rice Krispies. That was the guts of my new ididit column crunching as i turned the wheel. Not only did i now have about 1/4 turn of slop, but the steering shaft would move in and out of the column about 3/4".
So, 30 min of pulling the junk stuff out, and a quick call to Justin at Scott's Hot Rods and it's all history. New column should be here mid next week.
Basically what happened was, since i grounded to the frame, and did not have a ground strap to the block, it used the throttle cable and the steering column to find ground.
I just hope nothing else got fried in the process.
uhg...