[FC] weird electrical problem

[Bill Wells]

Wild8bill,
   
  What you are seeing is a bad connection at the battery of your negative cable. With this connection open and any load turned on, you have a path to the positive battery terminal. 
  Check out that negative battery terminal. It has developed a high resistance due to corrosion and is passing only enough current for the test light and other low current loads.
   
  By the way, please sign your posts with a name. It seems very impersonal otherwise.
   
  Good Luck,
  Bill Wells

Wild8bill at aol.com wrote:
  I've been away for a couple weeks, and the rampside decided to stall out on 
my girlfriend while I was gone. she got a ride home, went to get it the next 
day and it started and made it most of the way home (stalling at some lights 
until refusing to start about a block from home). I just got done checking it 
out, found that it was electrical problem. I tried to start it, dash lights 
came on, but turned motor over 3-4 revolutions and the power goes out. I 
checked and cleaned all the connections, and had power to dash again. Any large 
drain (headlights, starter) causes it to lose power again, with disconnecting 
and reconnecting the battery solving the problem, until I try to start it 
again. Using my 12 volt tester, I found that the chassis actually becomes 
POSITIVE when the power cuts out. disconnecting and reconnecting battery ground 
cable reverses it so chassis is NEG. I don't know why it does this; bad battery? 
The weird thing; the battery ground cable, that goes to the engine block but 
still attached to the NEG battery terminal, will be POS, and touching the 
tester directly to the NEG terminal will make the tester light go on! Before I 
go buy a bunch of parts I don't need; does anyone know if I have a bad 
battery, bad cables, poor grounding, or some kind of gremlin in the wiring harness? 
(bypass already done on rear harness connector)
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