New battery installed...
I get nothing when key is turned on. No click no lights nothing. What ever could it be????? 12.79 volts on battery. Good clean connections. Heeeeelp~!

 

check the wires going to the starter solenoid. also check all ground connections.

 

Wires going to starter sol are good, but shouldnt that be grounded somehow? I just see hot to starter and hot to battery. Theres no ground there?

 

no going to the sylinoid there wouldnt be a ground.. only hot.. but if you dont have any lights even just hooking it up there is somthing wrong there...if there were lights and it still wouldnt start i would say jump the syliniod but idk... i'll look in my book and see if there is anything in there..

 

cool thanks, this is driving me nuts. my book is on order and should be here next week. until then im wasting my good weekend time scratching my head and aimlessly cleaning connections. the solenoid is real rusty. im lost.

 

generally everything gets its power from the wire that runs between the battery and the solenoid.
have you checked your stop/run switch. generally when those are in the stop position it kills the power to everything. after you check that then i would check the ignition switch itself.

 

ya see theres the problem. i have a spark with the switch on, and with the kill switch on "kill" i still have a spark. somehow the switch is bad? ive taken it apart and cleaned it but still the same. i did see a loose connection (soldered) but it was still intact. maybe that is no good. i figured if it was still attached then it was ok. cant wait until the book gets here cause i dont know what range to test these components with my ohm meter.

i sincerely appreciate everyones help. anyone have the specs for that model?
97 425 mag 2x4?

 

I replaced my battery once. The replacement was identical to the original with one important difference; the terminals were reversed. As a result, I fried the voltage regulator, located on the upper left frame member just in front of the radiator, which resulted in nothing working. If everything was working fine until you replaced your battery, I'd check this first.....

 

Take the cables off the selenoid and clean the posts under them, could be your bad connection.