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Northeast Louisiana | Wow, something's screwy there. My first thought is that you must be mistaken on which post is which. Are they clearly marked or is it hard to tell which is which? Maybe the battery case is marked incorrectly? I just can't imagine one could just hook a battery up backwards and it keep functioning.
I think I'd remove the battery (is there only one?) and try your test light again.
Are you sure that there isn't a battery on the other side of the truck hooked into this one? All my trucks have the batteries in one box, but a neighbor of mine had a truck that had a battery on each side, under the steps. I think it would be pretty hard to get an 855 cranked with only one battery.
Now, let me ask you this:
Assuming there's more than one battery, are they hooked up in series (positive on one to negative on the other) or parallel (positive to positive, negative to negative)?
We have some IH trucks from the 80's, and they all use three or four 12-volt batteries hooked in parallel, positive posts linked together going to the starter, and negative posts linked together going to ground. This increases the amps but keeps the volts at 12V. I would think this is how your truck should be wired. It could be that someone has hooked the batteries in series, which could yeild 24 volts, and make the negative post on one of the batteries hot. Some heavy equipment does run on 24 volts.
If it really is hooked up positive ground, I would imagine you'd need to replace a good many things, but who knows.
As far as cab power, you could have a cab power relay (just like the starter relay mounted on the firewall of Ford trucks) that has gone bad. No idea where this would be located on your truck, but I'll be there is one somewhere.
Good luck. Electrical problems can be a real pain, especially on older big trucks, because they are often spec'd differently and no one ever seems to have the all the records.
Edited by Deadduck 5/12/2009 18:34
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1986 IH S2200 positive ground???
