Ok, i don't even know how to change my own oil (although after this experience, i'm sure it wouldn't be a problem), but i'm gonna just let you know that i know almost nothing about cars. Here's what's going on...

My truck's battery drained completely sunday night, so i tried to get it jumped from a friend on monday, but the jumper cables would start smoking real bad. I found out this was caused by an exposed part of the wire where the manifold had burned through the casing of the positive battery wire (between the starter and battery) and it was touching some metal and grounding it out - i assume, because when i taped it up, the jumper cables no longer spark.

Long story short, I've taken the alternator, battery, and starter in and had them bench tested seperately. All 3 tested to be ok. I have a friend coming over with a voltometer tonight. Any tips on what to test with it? I will be starting with the cable between the alternator and battery, but if it's not that, my non-mechanic brain will be all out of ideas.

 

if your cables were on the battery good, and the connections had been all good on the alternator, and the belt on the alternator was on good, and you have a dead battery after setting overnight, then there is something on that is draining power. to check, remove the ground cable from the battery. put a DC ammeter on a 10 amp (divide by 2, if you have that) settings, and connect one lead of a DC ammeter to the negative post of the battery, and the other lead to the negative battery cable. check the reading. if you don;t have a divide by 2 setting, then the 10 amp settting will also work. (if you set it to low at first, you may blow a fuse in the ammeter). check the reading. you show not see much movement with a analog meter (digital will show , i guess; i don;t have a digital one). you are looking to only see 300 -500 milliamps. that is the amount to keep the radio hot and the clock running. if something greater than that, like 1000 - 1500 milliamps (i have seen) or more (1 - 1.5 amps), then you will need to track down a current draw.
to do that, leave the meter hooked up and take each fuse out individually. if you remove a fuse and the meter drops, then that circuit is the bad one. replace each fuse and continue. if you go thru each one and none causes a drop, then you will have to look for circuits that have fusible links that do not go thru the fuse panel. if there is a fuse panel under the hood, check that also (but i think that is on foreign cars - not sure). check the ecu , also. i found one there on an alfa romero.
hope this helps