a few weeks ago, i left my '99 4.6 5-speed parked in front of my house while i shipped off for college. since i'm close to home, i was home this past weekend, so i decided to put in a fuel gallons with a can (i left it parked with the fuel light on, i saw no sense in filling her up before leaving). i went to start it and it didn't crank. we jumped it, i ran a few errands (maybe 15-20 minutes of driving), and parked it again. a few hours later i went to start it again, and not only was it once again dead, but there was also a strange ticking noise coming from the fuse box area when the driver's door was open. when i turned the key to the accessories, all of the gauges maxed out for a second, then went back down. when i tried to start it, all i got was a loud, electronic buzzing from the dash area.

i'm at a loss for what's going on. my brother thinks there's a relay of some sort that is stuck on and draining the battery, but i'm sure someone here knows more about it than we do. all help is appreciated, thanks!

 

Have you done a draw down test on the battery or at least put a meter to it to check voltage?

 

Not sure but mine has a CD stuck in factory radio. My radio with the key out will flash bad disk every few minutes. Also in the dash cluster mine flashes a red security light while truck is shut off. I would think that with a weak battery it would drain it pretty quickly after a few days. Don't know if they all do it but I figured this might give you a start.

 

Could be just a dieing battery. They are usually only good for 3 to 5 yrs.

 

Make sure the battery is fully charged and then have autozone or your favorite parts store test it. If the battery is good, turn the vehicle off with the doors closed and let it sit for 30 minutes. The remove the fuses under the hood one at a time and measure the current across the terminals with a multi-meter. If one of the circuits gives you a current draw near one amp or more that is your culprit. I had this problem on a Tarus and it turned out to be the radio head unit. Once I disconected it the current draw was nearly zero and my dead battery problems were gone.

 

gave this a try with my brother on saturday and two things were drawing power from the battery: the dome light relay and the GEM. we took out the relay, let it sit a few hours, and when we went back out to try, it was dead again. i still haven't checked the battery itself, but if it's not battery related, it looks like i may have cluster problems

 

My bet is the radio is draining the battery. If you are getting the CD error message, the CD is jammed and it keeps the unit active even when the ignition is off because its in between modes or something. there is a TSB about it. But the key is to get that cd out of it, leave the player empty to avoid this. It was common on the indash 6 CD players...

Also try this too.. There is a battery saver relay...

http://www.ford-trucks.com/tsb/fullt...p?tsb=*00-19-2

 

That "clicking" is a good thing! Its locking out your start up system so you don't burn up your started becaude u have a dead battery! If your battery is ober 4 years old replace it! If you have never put water in your battery that could be the issue. U gotta pop those tops off and look down in there batteries need water. If it's empty fill it to the line (not to the top) in each chamber jump the truck and let the charging system work. Should cure your problem. Batteries and water levels are the most commonly looked over item in these issues.

Let me know what happens

 

No no no the relays are doing their job stop screwing with them and check the battery. 4 years old replace or no water fill it up. With anything but tap water unless u have a nice well. They say use distilled but it doesn't really matter as long as you don't use city water or water with a lot of crap in it. When voltage is low the telays click its to avoid burning up REALL PRICEY PARTS. Breaking relays aren't cheap either they go from 25 to 105 bucks. Just go from the bottom up first. Car doesn't start check the battery then if that not the problem then check relays charging systems and stuff 24 time out of 25 its the battery

 

My trucks battery will drain if ut sits for a while but I know that its the programer that's draning it