YES SIR! I learned my lesson the hard way and have the blisters to prove it, no more dumb crap - I swear. I appreciate your help, don't give up on me - I feel like we are almost there, and I truly need your help - very sorry. This is the exact procedure that happened.
The red/green wire that is hanging in front of the fuse box. I hooked a wire up to it via alligator clips and then hooked it up to the positive side of the battery. I put the original
flasher back in, and put everything back to the way it was. A few minutes went by and the smoke came off the wire that I ran from the eyelet to the battery - I jerked it off with my bare hands.
Everything is still working, I got lucky this time - I promise I will follow your advice to a T because it is obvious I am clueless.
I plugged the relay up correctly, put a new 15 amp fuse in. Everything is working but the brake lights. So we are still good to go.
You stated earlier, "If I were you I would not mess with the relay yet. You have a new relay and a plug that seems like it belongs on it. At this point, I would just hook that back up the way it belongs and just leave it alone unless troubleshooting issues brings you back to it.
You say one pin checked continuity but what did you check it to? What was the other point where you found it checks continuity? You have a wire in the plug and you touched it with the black multimeter lead. What did you touch the red multimeter lead to?"
Here is what I did. The wire that is hanging down in front of the fuse panel, the green/red wire that has the eyelet. I will include a picture:
View attachment 3913
I hooked this green/red wire up to an alligator clip and ran it to the negative lead on my
multimeter. I then probed the boot/cap and found the left side working - did this with and without the copper piece - I found that my lead had enough meat on it to get into the boot. As soon as I touched it on that one side it beeped and showed continuity. Does that make sense, I think I ran the test correctly?
As you said:
You said you have working taillights. Good!
You said you have working emergency flashers. Good!
You said the directionals work. Good!
This is all still true.
At this point, I am at a loss. It would seem there is continutiy between the red/green wire and the left side of the boot/cap. What I do not understand is why when I hooked the red/green wire up to a constant source like it should be - or I thought it should be - it went up in smoke after 5 minutes or so. Is there resistance in the line, or did I use a jumper cable with too small of a gauge, or do you think that the wire splice that goes into the boot from the fender well somehow interferes with another wiring?
Again, Look forward to working with you and the rest -
I promise no more cowboy antics.