Question Had loose positive wire from battery so rolled truck downhill and started standard truck,no problem, fixed connection.There was no problem with anything but now seems no spark replaced coil,battery fine all connections seem fine turns over but no start.I am in Calgary AB and its about to get real cold here so any info would be awesome
AnswerHi Phil,
A long time ago, with generator-powered systems, you could check the presence of output voltage by removing the positive cable of the battery and seeing if the vehicle remained running. If it did, the generator was working properly. When vehicles started being fitted with internal-regulators and IC circuits, people thought that it was still OK to check the voltage output by pulling a cable off of the battery and observing the running characteristics of the engine.
The problem was that generators had external regulators that were much slower than the internal ones of modern alternators made today and when you pulled the battery cable off of a generator-ed vehicle, the voltage level slowly rose but because generators were limited to 14 volts and had very low amper-hour rates, there was little chance of them burning-up any sensitive electrical components. Mostly because cars of yesteryear didn't have a huge amount of them installed.
Alternators on the other hand have larger stators, rectifiers with three diodes and more importantly, internal regulators. The internal regulators are lightning fast and because we live in an 'instant gratification' society, the output voltage was increased to 18 volts and the amper-hours were drastically increased so the battery could be re-charged after a start in almost no time flat prepping the battery for the next start no matter how close it is to the initial. From generators releasing 5 amp charges to the battery to modern alternators pumping out 125 amp and more.
Your alternator is rated much below 100 amps but when the battery cable detaches somehow, it puts the alternator in a 'full-output' state because the alternator thinks the battery is DEAD because it is NOT receiving the 12v signal that the regulator uses to limit the output.
When your battery cable became disconnected an 18v spike hit the delicate electrical components in your vehicle and caused them to surge. This huge surge of power probably weakened the Dura-spark ignition module or the ECM.
This is just a guess, but it would seem the most likely. You should have your computer hooked up to a diagnostic analyzer and have the ECM scanned. You can jump the ground terminal in the ALDL connector with the key ON also and read the codes that the ECM spits out and get back to me with the codes (all except the code 12 you will get first) and I'll do what I can to help you further.
Thanks for the question, I hope this information was helpful to you.
Fred
www.knucklebusters.us
570-453-0910
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