This weekend I had to take my battery out of my truck to start up another vehicle and move it. When I put my battery back in I hooked the terminals up back words and smoke started flying from around the solenoid. I have a 87 f-150. Usually whats the first thing to burn when this happens. Did I kill my alternator? My truck will start up and run fine. Yesterday when it happened, I was driving home the charge gauge was in the red on overly full charge and today my battery is dead. Today I started it up and the gauge will go into the red for low charge if my headlights are on. So im guessing alternator right?

Also before any of this happend, If I unhooked my battery while the truck was running it would still run. Now if i do that it will run real erratic like the cam and chain timings are off. Whats going on? All suggestions will be most helpful.

Thanks

 

Sounds like your alternator and/or internal voltage regulator has failed. Easy enough in the scheme of things to pull it off and get it tested.

How are your other electronics / electrics?

Hopefully it will be just the alternator - and it's low output may be causing the things you describe when the battery is now unhooked. However, other things may have been taken out with the crossed polarity.

Good luck, and let us know what you find.

 

Im going to second its that alternator, its only a 1/2 hour job, and about 150 for a remanufactured alternator. (It that much for our 1/2 ton chevy last year, so maybe a bit more for the ford part)