Starter Situation - 10/25/2015
My starter began acting up in December of last year (Christmas eve in fact). I replaced the starter in January and it had been fine since even though the truck was rarely driven. It began acting up with the same symptoms a few months ago where it would just *clunk* and nothing would happen. Re-apply the key a few times and it was fine and started every time. But then I went to North Carolina yesterday and it refused to start for almost 5 minutes. In front of a guy's house I was picking parts up from. Not exactly good times. I decided to fix it once and for all.
I saved the original Motorcraft starter that I replaced in January - the sticker says "Made in USA" on it, so I figured it was worth keeping around. It's a little dirty, so I decided to take it apart and clean it up.
Unfortunately there isn't much to clean up... I verified operation and checked that the impedance between the 2 terminals was less than 0.1 ohms (the impedance of my meter leads) and cleaned everything to the best of my ability. The solenoid is a crimped sealed system and can't be opened.
First item of business is replace the original 20 year old battery cables. They have been doing the job, but sooner or later they're going to give out in a bad way due to all the corrosion on them.
The ignition relay. People call it "the Ford solenoid" but ultimately it's a relay. The terminal on the right is from the battery and feeds the truck via the other 3 wires bolted to it and the terminal on the left turns the solenoid on the starter on. Top connection is the key switch wire and the body is grounded to the fender.
The negative cable has 2 terminals crimped on, one on the end to a block mounted stud and another a few inches away that mounts to the frame. You can see that getting the frame one out requires a very long extension...
Cables removed from solenoid. It will need to be cleaned up.
Olds cables come out.
The ends down near the block are all green and broken.
The positive terminals are all green too.
New and old side by side. NAPA is the only one who actually sells the proper cables, everyone else just wants to sell you generic stuff. I like having everything be a nice and easy drop in with quality crimps, so I bought NAPA cables (and they were cheaper than buying all the parts and crimping them myself). Note the bracket that is attached to the positive cable: it is mounted to the same stud as the negative terminal ends and keeps the wires from moving while guiding them between the motor mount and frame to the starter.
This is the unique stud that is used to bolt the negative cable to the block, along with a star washer (yes, I did wire brush it up and apply anti-seize to the threads!!).
Negative cable is attached to the stud. This was a fun angle to work from. AIR pump is in the way and rather than remove it, I just removed the hoses for it and moved them out of the way. Then worked by feel and limited sight from below.
Brackets are tightened down. The transmission cooler lines mount to this stud as does the previously mentioned positive cable routing bracket.
Wires to the solenoid on the starter are run.
I put the factory starter back in just for giggles. It has a very nice cap to cover the wires from grimes and grease.
Starter is in. I made sure to route the wires as far away from the header as possible to avoid heat problems.
Cleaned up the ignition relay and ready to hook back up.
All wired up and ready to test! It worked... not. Same problem still there. I ended up doing some troubleshooting and found...
The ignition relay was bad! All this work for a $11.99 part! I verified it by taking the wire from one end of the relay and just touching it directly to the battery post. Out of 5 attempts it cranked the engine EVERY time with no hesitation. So that meant the problem wasn't down in the starter or the wiring to it. It had to be up above. I used the multimeter across the terminals with the battery disconnected from it and measured the impedance. Sure enough... 600k, 500k, 1.1M, 0.2 ohms. Ah hah! So the relay was no longer making a good connection! I drove to the parts store since they had one in stock and bought it. Installed it in the parking lot and after 6 different stop\start sessions running errands, we're all good and no issues!
Glad this little item is done. We're pretty much done with the truck except for maybe upgrading the stereo to the one from the Lemans and fixing the fuel selector switch that broke off of the instrument panel trim plate (new plate is $229, I'm thinking I can repair 2 broken holes for less than that...).
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Last updated October 25th, 2015