My '66 has lost all power

[rosey66]

My '66 went completely dead about a week ago and now I'm back from vacation and ready to tackle the problem.  And when I say dead, I mean I have no power to anything in the car.  No interior lights, no attempting to turn over, etc.  When the car went dead, I was simply idling, waiting for my wife to finish chatting with a friend.  At that point, we tried to jump the car and that didn't work.

The battery is fully charged (and always was), the battery posts are clean and the battery cables are on tight.  I had recently replaced my alternator before this happened and all was working well up to this point.  Could it be a bad voltage regulator?  I don't see any melted wiring, but I need to take a closer look tonight.

Any ideas as to what could be the problem?

[nvrbdn]

to kill everything, id be leaning at a bad connection at the firewall. the bulkhead must be loose, or making no connection to knock out everything. with the battery connected, you can jump across the starter relay to see that there is power to that. "or, use a tester." but to knock out everything, id be looking at the connection of the wiring harness at the firewall.

[Ghoste]

Check your fusible link.  If its popped though, you still have a problem to locate.

[myk]

^^^What they said.  Pop them off one at a time, inspect and clean, slather in dielectric grease and then see what happens...

[A383Wing]

could be bad ammeter also in cluster

[rosey66]

Thanks guys.  I removed the voltage regulator leads and removed the wiring harness connections and cleaned them. After reconnecting, I had power!

[Ghoste]

Did you add a little dielectric grease too?  Helps to keep the corrosion at bay.

[FastbackJon]

Ditto on the grease. Napa has a big 3 oz tube pretty cheap. I've gotten into the habit of putting it into connectors as well and also down into the spark plug boots to help them easily slip back off the plugs.

[nvrbdn]

great news.

[rosey66]

I didn't have any dielectric grease but there appeared to be a fair amount still on the connections.  I didn't clean all of it away trying to keep as much intact as a could.  Think I should add more?

[Ghoste]

Without seeing it hard to tell but if there is enough to coat the terminals you're okay.