Ok, I'm baffled. I drove my 1977 home from work (45 minute drive) and came out about 2 hours later and it was dead. No interior lights, nothing. I thought I left my lights on again, so I tried to jump it. Even with the jumper cables hooked to a Nissan Titan, not a thing.

Where do I start? Please help.

 

Maybe you should try to jump it off a Honda, that Nissan Titan is just too much for it.

 

bad ground?

 

I would check the ground cable from the battery to the frame. You could try running a jumper cable from the neg terminal to the frame somewhere and see if that gets some action / lights etc. If you do, it's a bad ground cable or connection.

 

Also remove and clean both battery cables and also check to see the pos cable connection at the starter solenoid is in fact making a good connection.Another possibility is the fusible link that feeds the interior,the headlights are on a separate link,do the headlights work?

 

I had a similar thing a while back. I could start her up but as soon as I turned on the lights, she would die. Turn key again, and nothing, dead as the proverbial.
No electrics at all. Even after turning lights off, she was still dead.
Took days of tracing wires to find it. Had all lights disconnected..

Turned out a wire had got caught down by the radiator, dont ask me how, I have no idea. It was shorting to the radiator.
Moved the wire and tied it in place, turned the key and she fired right up!

I assume a Vette has some kind of breaker that can sense a short and will only reset itself after short has been rectified.

Have you worked on anything electrical recently? Maybe something got moved out of place.
Good luck.

 

I agree with a short, I had a Ranger that shorted the battery and when given a jump the lights on the car boosting went out. When push started (stick) truck started and run good as soon as I shut it off nutin, battery was shorted out.

 

Thanks for all of the great feedback. I haven't done any "work" on her in a while except keep her clean.

It should be an easy thing to confirm a shorted battery, if I disconnect the battery and do a continuity check from the positive cable to the chassis ground, that should be a clear indicator if the battery is shorted.

BTW, does anyone have a diagram of where all the chassis grounds are located for a 1977?

Again, thanks for all the help.

 

I too own a 77,last summer I was stuck in trafic and the car got a little hot.Stopped to get gas went to start nothing.No lights no power.Found that the small wire coming from the solenoid had streched in the heat alowing the copper wire inside the casing to just seperate.When I had nocked the wire everything went on.Hope it's that easy.

 

You wouldn't happen to have a photo of where that happened on the car would you?

 

Trace the hot wire off the alternator. On my 75 it runs to a 3-way connection with a factory splice and a connector. one wire goes off somewhere under the dash and the other goes over to the starter. Anyway, if that connection at the 3-way is loose, your horn, lights, etc. will work but the car will not start. Won't even turn over but the volt gauge will show a draw. If it has become totally disconnected everything will be dead and I do mean everything. Took me a long time to trace that on my car and it may not even apply to your situation but it may be worth checking.

 

The above statement is confusing. If any switches in the car are closed you will show continuity.Do your continuity check between the neg term of battery and the frame.
The frame ground that commonly goes bad is directly below the battery-follow the neg batt cable through the battery box and check where it attaches to the frame.

 

my 77 had the same problem too a while back. i had voltage to the starter but not to the car. i chased the wiring off the starter and there is a connector on the top of the firewall on the passenger side, there must have been something loose in there as all my digging around didn't find anything broken. i'm just waiting for that little gremlin to come back.......

 

Here is a common problem on the later C-3. There is a connector that is right above the pass. side valvecover. The connector feeds 75% of the car. If it is loss or corrided, it will not make contact and the car does nothing except the headlight will come on. ie the other 25%.

Most the time this happens the day after someone cleans their engine bay with Simple Green or Orange cleaners. Find the plug, should be a purple wire and wiggle it. See if that solves your problem. Also first check you lights and see if they come on.

 

You beat me to it.

 

Check the battery. Sometimes a battery that is old or one that has drained down multiple times just wont take a charge no matter what you do. Try a different battery and see what happens.

 

I had this EXACT thing going on earlier this year (an ironically was using the same truck to jump the vette.. haha).

Anyways, I had two issues. My starter died and my battery died at the same time. I could bypass the battery completely (jumper straight to the leads) and not even get a click out of the starter. I could push start it with a portable jumper on it though (4 speed car).

Check your voltage on your starter and see if it will even turn. Also it doesnt hurt to grab a battery out of another vehicle just to see if you can get it to turn over like that.

 

Check with Doc Rebuild. http://www.docrebuild.com/oosoez.html I just got a wiring diagram from him for my 76 and 75. They are the best I've seen. They show all of the connectors and what they look like. They also show all of the grounds and where they are supposed to be connected. The diagram is laid out to show, in order, where each wire comes out of the harness. I'm having the same problem with my 75 and will be using the diagrams to look for a short or a missing ground.

 

Ok, you guys kick A$$. Thank you so much for the help, it was a bad wire to the starter. I would have taken me a looooong time to find that, but it was like the 4th thing I checked. If any of you are ever near Pensacola FL, send me an email, I owe you a beer.

Oh and Buzzardz_vette, I liked those wiring diagrams a lot, but they didn't have my year, they seem to be really well done, and easy to use, but I hope I don't need it, if you know what I mean.

 

I hope my problem turns out to be as simple. We'll see. Oh, and if you ever do need a wiring diagram, call Doc Rebuild. Sometime his website is a little behind and he may have the 77 diagram already.