Electrical Short Lost ALL Electricity

[Booyah the monkey]

I was repainting the gauge face on my 1976 Scout II. I went to screw the plate back on and when screwing in the bottom screw closest to the steering wheel I created a short by cutting through the insulation on a thicker red power cable (similar in thickness to blue alternator wires) that connects to a harness, the harness itself is white and doesn't connect to anything but the red wire runs from the harness to the fuse panel. As soon as I saw the smoke I unscrewed the screw and it stopped burning the insulation. I covered the exposed wiring with heat shrink and tried to restart the truck to see what damage had been done and nothing turned on. I checked the fuses and they are all fine and I ran a circuit tester through the fuses and the wire I burned and no electricity is going anywhere. Also, I tried to replace the gold box and ignition coil but that did nothing. Nothing turns on when I turn the ignition, no reaction from alternator gauge, the lights won't turn on. I don't have a manual and read through some of the threads to find a similar problem but haven't found anything. Any help is greatly appreciated. I have included pictures of the initial short and the harness that it connects to and also a picture of where the red wire connects to the fuse panel.

 

[Scoutboy74]

Welcome to the forum. Looks like you really let the magic smoke escape. I believe that red wire is the main power feed to the fuse panel. One of your tasks will be to replace all the crispified wires and terminations. The other is tracking down the break in power. There should be a fusible link on the engine side of the bulkhead connector, specifically on your main power feed wire coming into the cab which originates from the large lug/terminal of the starter mounted solenoid. Its quite likely that this fusible link popped its it is designed to do in the event of a short to ground. So look for that. If you have a 12v incandescent test probe, you can use it to trace the path of current from your battery down stream until you find the point where no current is present. It goes like this: battery to large lug of starter solenoid. Light should illuminate at battery positive post. It should also then lite up at the large solenoid lug. Then trace the 10ga wire from there up to the bhc. Probe the engine side connector. Bet the light stays dark. So the fusible link is somewhere in between. If its bad, remove it, purchase another just like it, but don't install it until you've made damn good and certain that you don't have any crispy, crunchy, bare wires left unattended. Also don't be tempted to simply "bypass" the bad fusible link and make a direct connection.

 

[Booyah the monkey]

Thank you for the reply. I will start it tomorrow and follow your directions, after making that mistake I had take a break from the Scout. This forum seems very valuable.