i went for a drive today to test out my new tires. and when i got back i went to start it again and nothing. i un hooked the battery to check some connections and when i hooked it back up there was NO POWER AT ALL. no light, radio, heat . nothing. i have replaced both the battery and altenator in the last 2 months. what else could it be? A bad ground? i wouldent evan know where to look for that. o ya its on a 91 3.0 pickup

 

have a voltmeter? If so, what's the battery voltage?

if you don't have a voltmeter, start checking fuses.

 

i checked all the fuses. they were all fine both under the hood and the ones on the kick panel

 

will it at least jump start off someone else's vehicle?

 

No the jumper cables got hot as hell when i hooked em up!

 

hooked your battery up backwards maybe?

 

assuming they were hooked up right... + to + and - to - ... that shouldn't happen if you're not pulling a load through the cables (ie; trying to start the truck). They may get a little hot to the touch trying to turn over a big V8 from another vehicle's battery, but the 3.0 doesn't pull too many amps to start it... To me, it sounds like a horrible short somewhere draining the battery... probably destroyed the battery as well... at worse, the Alt as well...

 

everything was hooked up correctly. the rubber around the jumper cables started to melt. i noticed that for some reason my starter was wobbling like the bolts came loose or something. could that have anything to do with it?

 

possibly could be resistance raising the current in the jumper cables.
tighten everything up.

 

well... its starting to rain again. and im not messin with this junk while it pouring like this so ima call it a night till the mourning. any more advise would be helpfull tho. Im gonna pull the starter and re install it tomorrow.

 

what catches me as odd is that the wiring on your truck isn't getting hot or melting. It's only the jumper cables. makes me want to say that the jumper cables were hooked up wrong.
it would've taken 100+ amps, if they were hooked up right, to overheat them immediately when they were hooked up.

 

Bad cell in the battery is entirely possible. Will run with a jump but dies even after letting it charge.

As for the jump wires getting really hot like that, bad ground dude or not enough juice is flowing. It happens all the time I use jumper cables, thats why my company went with booster boxes now.

 

Sounds like you have a massive short somewhere, possibly your starter. I would disconnect your battery terminals to see what kind of resistance your have for your complete car system. It should be high.

 

TOOK THE STARTER OUT and re installed and and it started right up when i hooked up the jumper cables. gonna go get some lock washers to make sure it doesent come loose again