Battery arc'd now truck won't start

Today I was changing the headlight bulbs on my 04 Tacoma and had to move the battery to replace it and when I was putting the battery back in the brace bar touched the positive terminal and kinda welded itself to the terminal. I had to pry it off. the brace bar is grounded so I think it messed something up. it has no power when I put the keys into the ignition. it will ding at me when just putting it in the slot. The fuses look fine and none look blown. Hooked my roommate's car up to it and I get power in the cab but it won't start. The engine tries to turn but it's almost like it's not getting fuel or spark. Took the battery to auto zone and it passed the test so the battery is still good.

A friend of my mine said I may have shorted or burnt a wire, if that happened it doesn't explain why the cab has power when hooked up to another vehicle and not when just on the battery.

Any thoughts as to what might of happened?

 

Check your ALT fuse in the engine bay

 

How long was the battery draining ?

You had a Short direct to Ground no Circuit protection .

What voltage does the battery read?

 

How are you jumping the battery?
Post to post on both + and -?

Or - post to engine block?

 

Cooked the grounds?

 

Fusible link?

 

maybe?

Just narrowing down the path to figuring this one out.
Not exactly sure why we have no power in the cab with a good battery in the truck.
But power in the cab when hooked to a different battery. The only thing I can think of right off is the ground connection that would do that.

I guess we also need to know if the truck cranks when being jumped?

 

The short went direct to the body the return path to the battery sees no circuit protection. in most cases who knows the just what the easy path was.

unless it was added to the main grounds

 

The battery is draining to the short is removed either pried off the terminal or the circuit opened melting apart.

 

I should stop reading while drinking, thought it shorted out differently IE crossed cables etc

 

Not a problem ! It was a valid guess.

 

all the fuses in the engine bay and under the dash do not appear to be blown.

 

12.6V

 

Positive battery terminal to the inner fender voltage ??

Positive battery terminal to the engine block voltage??

Your still having a no crank issue??

 

When it was hooked up to external power it was trying to crank but it would not start.
I am leaning more towards I broke the ground as when I take a multimeter and have the negative cable disconnected and try to measure the volts from the positive post to the ground cable I don't get a reading.

 

When I take the reading of the post to the body I get a 12.4V connection. also no power to cab so it wont crank with out external power.

 

Both places show good grounds around 12.5 VDC.

With the No crank did you kill the starter??

All fuses checked with the meter .

Battery terminals clean and tight .Was the positive battery terminal damaged ?? Has that been repaired or replaced?

Appears to have a Good Ground .

The only thing left is the starter . Perhaps just really bad timing not related to your mishap.

 

I don't think it's the starter as the cab is not getting power and I wouldn't think the starter would have anything to do with the no power to the cab.

 

Best of Luck .

One circuit at a time needs checked .

If everything else has checked out ok

 

You won’t get a reading this way.
That’s normal.