Ok, i am at the end of my list (and rope) here... The other night my alternator went, after umpteen years of service. so i replaced it with another rebuilt (from a private parts store here) this one it went also (they have a questionable alt/starter record) so i went to Autozone and got one, with the 1 week old one as a core. (oh yea it had almost NO resistance on the pully when spun) I threw the Autozone one in and thought everything would be cool. not so much, still wont charge, but i did have to go back to school so i drove close to 3 hours on the battery?? (i figured it would have gone bad by then, but it still fires right up) oh yea i was kinda pissed at this point too...
so here is where i am now, I tried to connect the post of the alt directly to the battery, (i got that by searching the forum) no dice, i also put new battery clamps on there too, and cleaned all the connection copper i could find... I also checked the fuseable link in the positve between the battery and the fuse block, it is sodered together, i have checked ALL the fuses in the whole truck (i think i found them all) so ANY body with any info please help me... I am out of ideas

86YOTA----Bring it over and I will have it going in 30 minutes...assuming AutoBone did not give you a bad one. I worked for AutoBone for 4 years and troubleshot about a hundred customer cars in the parking lot.....most of the time it was something extremely simple...a loose wire was top of the list. In your case, Toyota has a number of different plug pin-outs and I bet yours is not 'right'. It's a hell of a lot easier to know what the score is with a meter(DVM). With the engine running if you measure 12.6 vdc then the battery is still 'fresh' and is not getting any charge from the alt.....if you get 13.7~14.2 then it's charging.

ok what do you mean by plug pin-outs? I am goign to have the 2 of them tested tomorrow, (batt and alt). This is the deal with the battery though, it starts right up! started like 3 times! or do you think it could be discarged so far it wouldnt matter anyways...

Check to make sure it's getting power to it. They have to be energized in order to puout voltage.

ok where do I check that? is that one of the prongs on the large black plug in the back? I didnt know they needed to be energized to work, interesting...

there should be a positive and a ground at the alt, both light gauge wires; the bus pos.+ lead is a heavy gauge lead. with the key on, motor not running you can check for voltage at the smaller gauge wires one should be hot the other is a ground (im kinda guessing without looking at your alt.). then run the engine and check the voltage at the batt. it should be about 14 volts. then get back to me:)

ok guys thanks for the info, i took it to have it tested and the battery was low, but not totaly dead, and the alternator was putting out somewhat, but still sounded like it was on speed. so the guy with the meter checked those fuses near the battery and i checkd the cab ones, and low and behold there was a 15 amp one blown out, so after i swoped it everything was good, charging right were you guys said it would, and i had gauages etc, so the next problem WHY did it blow... i drove it around for a while and tried all the electrical apliances i had... raido break lights, directionals, trying to figure out what circuit it was grounding out on. so, i droped it into reverse after gettting a cup of coffee and it blew out again, AH HA! so, i will go over the rear wires later on tonight, i jsut had the rear section of the frame replaced and i have had to fix a few wires back up after being moved around... thanks for the info!