hey yall i think that the battery in my truck is old and i think the heat is messing with it.. cuz i can start my truck up in the mornin and it starts up nice and easy but if she sit out in the sun and its like 109.. she tends to take more crankin to start but it starts.. so i was wonderin if thats sign of an old battery?? if so i think i'll get a Optima RedTop, and would like to know if theres any tricks when you disco the battery and put a new one cuz i know my other truck has to relearn how to idle and was wonderin if my ford does any crazy **** when you disco the battery.. Thanks Yall

 

Hey Phoenix, why did you send the heat my way? 111 predicted for today here in Vegas. Change my battery in my 02 with out incident as to learning strategy. As with any time working with a battery, its negative off first and on last. This eliminates your wrench shorting from Pos to ground upon disconnecting the Pos cable. OK, its neg off first and on last. Remember also do not touch both batt terminals together with any metal object. Its a dead short and a whole bunch heat and sparks.

 

I was told by the former owner of my f-150 that it is not a good idea to jump these trucks with one of those batt-chargers that have over 50 amps. He told me that is why my guages in my dash don't work. he jump-started it with 200 amps. I still can't get any tech info on this problem and I can't get the guages to work.

 

Hey Hilltop, your gauges inop and battery charger as the suspect is interesting. When or just before I replaced my battery my gauges would peg out and go back to normal on start up. Told by Ford the battery was at fault or going bad. I didn't believe them but replaced the battery anyway as it was 5 years old. Low and behold no more instrumentation problem. We learn as we go.

 

Thanks yall .. sorry about the heat haha

 

Well I've replaced the batt. with a new one. I've also replaced a couple of fuses and called a ford service dept. to no avail. I syill have no guages.

 

Hilltop, sorry that you got the impression that I was recommending a battery replacement for your instrument problem. As my starter was engaged and turning over the engine for start-up is when my tach would peg at 6000RPM and speedo was 100 MPH. I couldn't understand if I had battery power to crank engine, why the gauges would go goofy. Suggest starting a thread explaining your problem, someone will respond with straight wiring dada pertaining to your problem. Again Sorry, I hate to **** away money also.

 

Hey Hilltop....
Not sure if this applies, but thought I would throw it out there anyway.
I had a 2004 F150 4X4 with the 5.4L, and on my way through Mississippi one night in October I suddenly lost all my guages and then shortly thereafter, lost all power and sat on the side of the Interstate (very upset obviously), and assumed that I had lost my alternator.
Got a used one at a junkyard for $70.00 and installed it a a matter of thirty minutes or so, and jumped it off and it started right up, only to die as soon as I removed the jumper cables. Decided to cut my losses and had it towed to dealer where they told me that the alternator and battery were bad. According to the the problem ORIGINATED in the battery and killed my first alternator and subsequenty destroyed my second one.
I have never heard of such things but it never gave me any more problems. You may want to let a dealer check your alternator just in case.
For what it's worth..........

 

Thanks Elmira 96! I guess I'm going to have to take it to the dealer. I have a new battery and it stay's charged but I guess something needs to be reset in the computer and that is far out of my area of expertise. I want to thank all who have responded to this thread, your imput has been appreaciated.