Ok, I took the vette out today for a drive. I was doing some tweaking on the idle (lowered it a hair) and took off. I stopped at a local convenince store and got a drink. Car started up fine. I went a mile and remembered a forgot to put the air cleaner back on , so I turned around and went back to the house. I pulled in the garage and left the car running to tweak the idle a bit more. I did my normal contortion to get out of the car and the sucker died. I tried to restart and I'm getting no juice. No accessories come on. I put a volt meter on the battery and it is good at 12.xx volts (I keep a battery tender on it while not in use). My carpeting is kind of loose, is the something on the floor board area that I might have knocked loose? I guess the next step is to turn the key to the accessory position and see if I have juice at the starter? I also tried to turn the headlights on - they aren't getting any juice either. jgoglick2006-12-29 13:51:44

Gee John yer new motor just locked up... (I couldn't stop that 1 sorry...)

Sounds like the starter (or starter solenoid). But if this checks out look fer a loose ground. That is likely since everthing was freshly installed an may have worked loose.   

If you're kicking your feet around the fuse panel when you get in and out, you may have knocked something loose like the main breaker module.  Can't see how that could stop everything though.  Good luck, electrical problems are a pain, especially in a 35 (soon to be 36) year old Vette.

John, you should have 12v at the large terminal of the starter solenoid whether the key is on or off. It is "hot" all the time.
If you have absolutely NO power to anything(lights, horn, clock, etc.), you either have a loose connection at the starter, or one of the battery cables(grounds), or...you blew the main fuse-link.
One other possibility is there is a loose connection at the horn relay.
"The WHAT?!" you say?
You heard me...the HORN relay. On the earlier Sharks, most of the fuse box, and other electrical junk is powered thru the horn relay, on the drivers side fenderwell. To be more accurate, that is where most of the main feed connections are. There are also several fuse-links there.
Check that there is 12v at the horn relay...doesn't really matter which terminal you check, just check them all(both?) If there is no juice at the horn relay, you have lost fire to it, and it gets it's fire from the starter. No juice at the horn relay is almost always a blown fuse-link down by the starter.(or a loose connection there)

Check to make sure your ground cable from the batt. is clean and tight under the seat. Then check that the ground cable from the frame to the engine(on the pass. side) is clean & tight. Do these checks first.

Here's an update. I looked under the dash on the left side. I made sure the two connectors in the pictures below were pushed together. I would then turned the key to the on position and the red seat belt warning light came on (I was standing outside the car). I get in, sit down, and turn the key. Nothing. I get out and turn the key. I have a red seat belt light again. The horn works when the seat belt light is on, but not when off. Makes sense after reading Joels post. I then stood outside the car, turned the key to on, got the seat belt light, and pushed down with my hands on the seat and made the light go off. Ever since I've had the car, the seat belt light stays on until I push the button beneath it. Is something finally shorting out or ?? I'll try some more deatailed troubleshooting tomorrow when I'm more coherent...

jgoglick2006-12-29 21:42:21

Oh, and I'll check the grounds for the battery and engine block tomorrow too...

[QUOTE=Tuxblacray]Gee John yer new motor just locked up... (I couldn't stop that 1 sorry...)
[/QUOTE]

Most womenn (See Micki I'm learnin) have no sense of humour about boyz toyz. But then again most men weren't born with that shoppin gene.(excluding EBAY MOTORS) Tuxblacray2006-12-29 22:02:35

Very true. And ebay motors isn't shopping, it's research!

.... back to more research....