The Bible On Trial!

Missed Connection~

I have been working on my 2006 Ford F-150 for nearly two weeks now. We bought this truck about 6 months ago, and I have slowly but surely doing maintainance and repairs such that the 170,000 miles that are on the clock will not be an issue moving forward for the next 100K miles. I started with the changing the differential fluid, transmission fluid and filter, replace the shocks, and worked on other small items. These past two weeks I have changed the drive belt, tensioners, idler pullies. I even had a mechanic friend of mine put on new anti-sway bar end links and bushing because I now my limits, and leave suspension repairs to experts. 

As part of these repairs I also installed a new alternator, because while the old one worked, it was making a slight bearing noise and I decided to not risk having it go bad while on the road. I decided to also put in a new battery at the same time, as the old one had two flat cells (checked with a hydrometer).

Everything went well with the install, and on the Ford 4.6L engine it is a relatively simple R & R (remove and replace). The only thing I didn't put into gear was my brain.

When I started the engine to check my work, the battery light came on. I did my checks to see what I missed, and literally couldn't see anything. I took it to Auto Zone (where we got the battery and alternator) and they did an alternator test, and it was getting 13.8 volts, but it was not charging the battery. I checked everything, no joy. There was two days of this misery, until I realized I had forgotten to plug in the alternator to the computer when I made the install. One 'little' thing that I didn't see kept the electrical system from working. 

We have all missed connections in our spiritual lives that have prevented salvation from working as it should in our lives. One 'little' connection can make all the difference.