Faulty battery, bad alternator, or both (photos)

At this point you have an "open" or "disconnect." You don't seem to be getting power to the load

Here's how this light thing works. Imagine in your mind a "loop" of a circuit, and you need something that draws (for example) "a bit" "a bit more" and "a lot" of current.

Let's imagine we have a "normal" working car and that we use our headlamp We turn the key to run, and the lamp will light "at some brightness"

What we have is a path...........battery positive.......through harness to ignition switch.......through harness to the cluster, warning lamps, ignition system, and voltage regulator..............to car ground.........up through our "test lamp" ..........and back to battery negative.

As you switch on more and more "stuff" the test lamp will light more and more brightly. If you switch on a REALLY large load, like headlights and or heater blower, it will REALLY start to light.

So you must constantly keep in mind "what you are doing" and "what you have on."

The purpose is to protect the car wiring, and allow you to find stuff with no worries of burning "junk" up.

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But what you are describing here, sounds like NOTHING is drawing current, so now you have to find out WHY. You probably "fried" something else when you smoked things.

Start at the connector for the ignition switch. If you have trouble with the diagram, post back. Find the "accessory" and "ignition run" (usually says "IGN 1") and see if you have power there with the key "in run."

If not, check the power wire coming INTO the key.