I had no idea this was there. It seems redundant since the starter solenoid also performs the relay function. But for the price I'll pick one up and swap it out today.

 

I was so happy after several years and 3 mechanics including a ford dealership telling me they couldn't figure it out I was so glad this cheap fix actually was what was wrong with it.

 

mine does this sometimes I mite look into that thanks for the info

 

Yea, Fords have been that way as long as I can remember. Before the relay was on the firewalls, it was on the wheel well.

The piggy back solenoid isn't a starter relay. To different types of processes.

I'm curious how this is going to turn out. I've never heard of a firewall relay causing a grinding noise as 4x4wolf suggests. So yes, please update. I'd like to add this to possible solutions. Since with other solutions, it can be much more costly.

 

sorry to hijack the thread,but this bought up an old memory....

Back in the day,the solonoid on the wheelwell made it real easy to hotwire a car.All you had to do was jump across two terminals,then use a screwdriver to activate the starter.
Figured this out on my dad's 65 Falcon before I even had a driver's license

 

Well I tried this one. I even got the deluxe version from Standard". Two starts later it started grinding again. Now two days later and it hasn't done it since.

The more I think about this, it's really a strange problem to chase down. If it truly is missing teeth or a bad spot on the flex plate then once once it happens you should not be able to start the motor at all unless you rotate the motor with a breaker bar to get to a better part of the flex plate. But it seems that without rotating the engine the starter will eventually engage and crank.

More than enough people on the forums have thrown new starters at this with no luck.

But the total randomness of when this happens combined with the fact that it will start fine 30 seconds later still leads me towards flaky electrical some where.

Now I'm wondering if the wire from the relay to the starter on the solenoid could have a bad connection.

 

Or maybe a bad ground?
Could a bad ground strap from the engine to the frame cause this?

 

Sorry to hear it didn't work for you like it did for me, hope to hear more updates on your progress

 

Might be a long shot but I have a buddy that had a Chevy that had the same problem it would grind sometimes then start others turns out he had the wrong starter bolts they weren't the right thickness so it would cause the starter to move

 

Has to be the flex plate IMO. Specially if it's intermediate. That sucks, pull the starter and inspect it. Also measure it from the inspection hole here and there, to confirm it's not bent.

I was really hoping it was going to be an easy fix.