Hello all,

My 96 F-150 (4.9L manual) is currently a stationary monument, but hopefully not for long. Last weekend, I tried to start it and heard only a click. With a neighbor's help, I measured some voltages at the solenoid terminals and found battery voltage on the one closest to the battery, which appears to be the last step on the way to starter itself.

My first thought was bad contact or a dead battery (it's old), but cleaning did not help and Autozone tells me the battery is good.

Is there anything else you would check before pulling the starter for a bench test? That seems like the next step: yank, go to Autozone, return with a working starter, old or new.

Unless you have other ideas, it sounds like I need to disconnect the negative batter terminal (the battery is still out of the truck, so no worries there), remove wires from the starter and then two bolts and out it comes.

I found the starter. Physical access is not the best. I would move the truck to help, but I can't, so I won't. I jacked the front right and put a jack stand under the radius arm. It never ceases to amaze me how the stand *always* seems to be in my way, but I have this thing about not getting trapped under falling trucks.

It seems as though the best shot is just behind the jack stand and working around the catalytic converter and friends. Sadly that has me working where my creeper falls into a "notch" in the driveway, but I think I can make it work. BTW, letting the truck move under it's own (lack of) power is probably not a good idea. Right now, it will go forward only, and there is not much room to grow in the direction.

Any pointers?

Bill

 

Any pointers!?!? I don't even know what the question is. Is it how to get your creeper unstuck from the notch in the driveway? Or perhaps a different jack stand location? Why does your converter have "friends"? Have you checked your tail lights for any hanky panky? Is your CB mounted on the roof? Does your knee hurt? Synthetic is better than conventional oil. A "timing bump" constitutes of advancing the base timing of your engine. You may want to check out www.fordfuelinjection.com. Also, when you Seafoam your engine, be sure to have it at normal operating temperature. 31x10.50's will fit with no lift. With no battery, you'll never start it, btw.

 

I must agree...i don't really know what exactly you are asking...

But the one thing that did stick out to me was you checked voltages...but never said anything about checking voltages at the starter itself. I might also point out that there is most likely another solenoid on the starter. You can try to short them terminals together and see if you can get the starter to move.

So at this point...i am thinking either bad starter or possibly bad cables.

 

Seems like some background and a question to me. I recall a much different atmosphere here in the past.

Bill

 

Well i suppose i could have re-read your post...tho i was stuck thinking about the notch in the driveway i guess.
I think you have answered your own question.
I have had starter issues myself, i swear they just don't make em to last.
You could try taking an extra set of known good cables and try jumping your current starter, just to check it yourself before pulling it out and heading to AZ.

 

Given the challenging position, I'm not terribly excited about trying to short terminals on the starter itself; it would be really easy to make unintended shorts, and if it did decide to work, I'd be under the truck at the time.

Understood about the possibility of bad cables.

Thanks,

Bill

 

Fair enough, but I thought the position to be relevant: where I might ordinarily want to fiddle, I'm inclined to get the thing out of the truck and then test it safely. You raise a good point about an extra set of cables though. I don't have spares, but it can't hurt to check on availability.

I did more or less answer my own question, but I was curious what others thought of my answer. Thanks for the ideas.

Bill

 

Sense of humor lacking? { <---Joke } I was just joking, sheeesh.

It did seem that you had everything well covered though, I kinda thought this was more of a "How to" thread than a "How do you" thread.

My bad.

 

Ok, now I have question. I'm having an interesting time removing the hot cable. It has a low gage (thick) wire that obviously carries the current and is secured to a threaded post with a nut. As far as I can tell, that nut has to be completely removed from the post. The snag is that it seems to be getting very tight near the end of the travel, and I don't want to king-kong it and end up breaking something because I missed a way to simply slide that cable off once the nut is loose.

I have a fairly good collection of extensions, including flexible ones, and there is very little room to turn a wrench. One approach that worked at first is starting to fail because the flexible extension is twisting in several directions. I have a air ratchet that might be able to do the job, but I thought I should ask before applying potentially damaging torque.

Is there a trick to removing the hot wire, or am I going to need to remove the nut?

Bill

 

Are the bolts holding the starter in place imperial or metric? Nothing seems to be a really solid fit.

Bill