[old man jimmy]

Man, I'm sorry I missed all this. Was gone all evening & just got home. Soooo glad you got it up & running again. See it wasn't so hard. As far as getting a spark when you hook up the cable. All that tells you is something is on. Clock, doom light etc. First off I would check your aux. battery cables. What did you do with them? And what kind of a rig did the po have for charging both batteries? Do you see something that looks like a ford starter selenoid? If both batteries were hooked up. That's probable what drove your regulator crazy. One being dead. And yes you are persistent. But sometimes that's what it takes. I for one am proud of you for finding your miss matched wires. Im still a little suspect of your 4 yr. old battery. Do You have one you can set in it to see if it sucks the juice out of it? Hang in their guy, you're making progress. As far as you charging voltage. It's perfect. Went back a couple posts. All 72lb4X4 is descibing to you is a way to find out if your drain is under your hood, or behind where you unpluged the firewall conector. Sounds like yours is under the hood.