Battery not charging

[general]

67 D100

77BEC8C4-8C41-42CD-BA85-75BE048B3D37.jpeg (21.81 KiB) Viewed 338 times

I have a 67 Dodge D100,all original,owned for 32 years,know it inside out.Friday night noticed lights getting dim.Checked on Saturday,battery wasn’t charging. I’m a trial and error guy,so bought/installed a new alternator,no change.Checked the grounds which were all good.Sunday bought/installed new voltage regulator and ballast resistor,still no change.Thinking it must be something to do with the wiring under the dash,and dreading having to take those butt-splices apart on the firewall,decided to unhook the main lead that hooks up to the alternator.Then used a set of jumper cables and using 1 cable,jumpered from the positive post of battery to the main lug of the alternator,watching my voltmeter as I hooked it up,and battery jumped up to 13.8 volts.High Fives for that part,knew the alternator was good. Removed jumpers and hooked lead back up to alternator.So knowing the wiring is screwed somewhere else,decided to check all the fuses,which I did before I started this process.The big thing is,I checked on both sides of the fuses on the silver ends and had voltage.I then checked on the clips where the fuse pushes in to on the fuse box, and had no voltage.There’s some rust on the contacts where the fuse pushes in so it wasn’t passing power from the fuse to the contact. Disconnected battery,sanded contacts with sandpaper.Connected battery,popped in the fuse,and as Jed Clampett used to say,Whoo Doggy,ha ha.Battery was back up to 14.2 volts ! So I have a new alternator,voltage regulator and ballast resistor that probably wasn’t needed,but they were under $100. total,and I stayed sober for the weekend. P.S.The fuse on my truck was the top right fuse.

[PwrWgnDrvr]

Rust on clips like that is a common problem. Good on u for figuring it out - not many do