oxidation

Well, it snowed. There's a bit of snow in the engine compartment up by the a/c blower come thru the hood vents. I get no juice at all. Even the interior cab light doesn't come on when i open the door, forget getting any indicators on the dash when the ign is set to run. Besides blow drying the engine compartment what could be going on here?

BTW batt was on charger overnight and tests fine and the fuses under the dash are all ok.

leohunter

did you clean the battery connectors

leohunter

could be a simple fix like a loose ground,its happened to me and mechanics couldnt find the problem,I did, you can charge the battery for six mths but if there is no connection you got no power

Good old Bill

Most likely battery took a dump. But deffinately clean the terminals, singlely the most undermaintained item on a truck.

oxidation

It's gotta be a loose ground. Here's what I've done so far:
1 - charged batt
2 - replaced starter solenoid
3 - replaced positive lead from starter solenoid to batt w new
4 - replaced negative batt post connector
5 - re-connect leads to starter motor

When i go around jiggling the wires and doing all of the above I can get into the cab and the cab light comes on and when I turn the key to run the engine warning lights shine nice and bright. The trick is that then when I turn the key to start there's a click - no action from the starter motor - and all the lights go off and I need to re-jiggle the wiring harness to get it to work again. I've gone looking for a bad connection any where there but have found nothing yet.

So two questions:
1- What's up withe the Haynes manual wiring diagram?
It shows FI for a 86 f150 and mines carbed.
Is there someplace I can find an accurate wiring diagram?

2- Is there a wiring diagram for a starter solenoid anyone knows of just in case I screwed up the new solenoid's installation (the BWD solenoid from advance didn't come with instructions)

klricks

Only the 5.0 (302) 8 cyl engine was FI in '86.
Make sure you are looking at the diagrams for the 4.9

What is the part number of the solenoid?
How is the solenoid labeled?
How do you have it hooked up now?

Some generic replacement solenoids have an extra terminal which is only used on older model's with a points distributor '70's - about '83?

Note that the solenoid gets it's grounding from the mounting bolts on the frame.

Try using a set of jumper cables for the ground. Clamp the cables from the (-) neg battery terminal to somewhere on the engine block. If it works with that then the engine grounding cable is bad or loose.

oxidation

So it was finally a warm enough day with nothing else to do that I got out and replaced the negative cable to the starter.

Bright lights illuminated and the engine cranked and fired up on the second go. Probably old gas.

I've attached two pics of the old neg cable. I can tell that the mount in the middle is bodged but why was it done? Surely not to keep the line out of the rad fan since the connect is mounted on bare copper, shown in second pic. Have I disconnected something important?