Does starter have to be hooked up to power the rest of truck?

[vikingsandpintos]

UPDATED>>> SCROLL DOWN! Quick version... Does the starter have to be bolted on and hooked up to get power thru the rest of the truck?

Long version.... Been working on my daughter's first vehicle, a 67 C10. Been doing a lot of various projects on it. A couple of weeks ago she put a new radio in it, and had it working. The headlights and tails haven't worked since we got it last fall, but some of the dash lights worked, and it started and drove.

I looked at various parts of the wiring, and it had been cut and spliced in multiple places under the hood and going back to the tails. I ordered a new harness going from the firewall to the rear, and a front light harness.

About a week ago, I pulled the trans out, because we are changing it from a manual to an automatic, but the new one isn't in it yet, along with the starter.

Also last week, since the radio is all done, she changed the dash pad, and pulled the dash stuff to get to it. While in there, we changed the headlight switch since it was there, and we didn't know if it might be a source of problems for the headlights not working.

Now, to today.. I didn't want to tackle the trans by myself, so I decided to work on the wiring. I changed the harness going to the rear. I changed the front light harness which includes the voltage reg, ect. I also put a new regulator on while I was doing the new harness. I put new battery cables on it. I ran extra grounds from the engine to the frame, and from the frame to the core support, to make sure everything is grounded really well. I didn't hook up the wires going to the starter since it isn't on yet.

As a side note, the distrib has been changed to an HEI by the previous owner. The old starter had 3 wires going to it, the big one from the battery, a small going to the S term, and a small to the R terminal. In another post, I asked about how to wire the new starter that only has the big post, and 1 small S terminal, and was told to use the old S wire to the new S terminal, and leave the other small wire unhooked.

Anyhoo, I got all the new harness and grounds done, and thought, I want to see if this fixed the lights! I put the battery in it, and hooked up the cables. I ziptied the starter wires and the other end of the battery cable so it couldn't touch anything. Tried the lights, and had nothing. In fact, there was nothing anywhere! No dash, no radio, no wipers, nothing, just completely dead! Double checked the battery, it was up. Tried a test light from the positive terminal to a frame ground, and it lights up.

Does the starter have to be hooked up for everything else to work? There is a red wire from the new headlight harness that is hooked into the battery cable, I assumed it goes thru the firewall junction box, and would power everything else. I don't see what the wires at the starter would have to do with anything, but wiring isn't exactly my strong point! lol

If the starter doesn't HAVE to be hooked up to try the other stuff, where do I start looking for the problem? We didn't do anything with the ignition switch, not sure where I should even start.... Usually, I follow the golden rule of changing 1 thing at a time, make sure everything is good, and moving onto the next thing. But in this case, have changed a lot of stuff since I knew the radio, ect, worked.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!!