Replaced the speedo, now all electric is out but the cigarette lighter! What'd I do?

[PanhandleShantyman]

Today I did two tasks and now while the battery is fully charged, the truck is dead-dead (absolutely nothing when I turn the ignition) and the only thing in the truck getting power is the cigarette lighter. Will a wiser head than mine tell me where I went wrong?

Task one was just to hook up the U-shaped connector to the new turn signal switch I put in yesterday. (The truck still ran fine yesterday after I finished installing that switch in the steering column.)

Task two was to take off the dash panel, put in a replacement speedometer, and put the dash panel back in. Getting the headlight pin out of the switch body did take a little wrassling around, it was a little stuck, but I didn't feel me breaking anything in that switch.

Anyway, I go to start the truck and absolutely nothing happens except the alternator indicator light came on appropriately. Engine doesn't turn over at all. Headlights, Horn, Dome light, Heater fan, wipers, turn signals , none of them work. The cigarette lighter has power, that's it.

The battery is fully charged and the fusible link looks fine.

What could I have done in the vicinity of the headlight switch that completely disabled the electric system? Or could hooking up my new turn signal switch have done if if I had something wired wrong? (I'm pretty sure it's all hooked up right though). is there a single fuse besides the fusible link that could blow and completely kill all this stuff? I'm about to break out the circuit tester, but if somebody wants to make a prediction of where my problem is I'd appreciate it!

[burb71]

I'm notorious for getting myself into electrical mishaps, the only thing I can say is... Go back and retrace all your steps over again.

[Keith Seymore]

I'm with burb71.

My recommendation would be to start smokin'.

K

[HO455]

I believe the problem has to be on the back side of the fuse block. It's likely you have a loose rivet on the buss work. Your moving the harness around might have tugged on the wires that connect to the busses causing the connection to fail.

[PbFut]

If cig lighter is working you have power to the firewall and into the fuse box so your fuse link is good. Suspect lead to or from ignition switch may be your issue.

[Joyridin]

Are you sure the wire to the neutral safety switch at the bottom of the column didn't pop out or somehow the switch got moved?

[raggedjim]

Check the Always on fuses shown in the attached thread. Are they on? If not, work your way back to the battery.

If they are on then the issue is with the ignition switch.


https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/...98&postcount=5

Actually, this whole thread is pretty good.

https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/....php?p=8004798

[PanhandleShantyman]

Thanks everybody for the good ideas. The neutral safety switch seemed to be fine. I really didn't think I'd yanked on anything hard enough to pull on the fuse box. I also didn't think I'd touched the ignition wiring at all, but since everything was so totally dead I decided to inspect, clean, and tighten up the ignition power supply starting with the positive battery terminal , which I found had a partially broken and dirty connection with the main positive cable. So my problem was the simplest possible thing, just one with no connection at all to the repairs I'd just done, which was leading me on a wild goose chase.

"Did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in?"

[raggedjim]

All problems are simple after the fix!

Nice work, Rg