Stupid Electrical/Charging Problems

A few days ago the charging system stopped working on the old bird. At first I thought it was the alternator, so I took that off and took it up to the parts store, replaced it, and guess what happened? Absolutely nothing. Next I thought the problem was the battery. I put an excellent charge on it and again it died. I went back up to the parts store, They checked the new alternator and apparently it was working fine. I replaced the external regulator just for kicks and even ran a dedicated ground from the alternator. STILL NOTHING. Today I decided it was time for some old fashioned test light tinkering to see if a wire somewhere was shorting out or not making a connection. Low and behold, I checked the positive wire that goes to the post on the back of the alternator and got nothing. Aha! Turns out the fusible link coming from the starter to the alternator was old and really badly corroded. All I did was unplug and replug it and problem solved. I threw 50 dollars at this problem only to find out that's all I had to do. So here's my checklist from now on, Check alternator, check battery, CHECK WIRING. Check

I've always just done away with that connector completely.

The worse the connection gets, the hotter the socket becomes-
I've had one start smoking!

Glad you figured it out, I'm chasing a similar problem on my 87TC right now.

I can't count how many times I've seen Pete or Jeff say "don't just throw money at it..."

I had the harness melt down on my old 85 TC. I went and cut an alt harness out of a 90's 2.3 Mustang for the repair.