Weird starting problem

[Snowboarder7710]

My friend has a 99 ranger 4.0 ohv manual trans 2wd. just recently (3 days ago) the truck just wouldnt start. when he turned the key to start it, there would be a click (like the starter turned once and thats it). so we pulled the starter tonight and he went and bought a new one. put the new one in and reconnected it. we go to start the truck and then "click" and then the entire ignition system died. gauges and everything went dead. turns out the 50 amp fuse that supplies power to the ign popped. we looked into that and the thin wire that activates the solenoid on the starter was rubbing against metal. the new autolite starter was a bit bigger than the motorcraft one that was on there and caused the fuse to pop b/c of the wire contact touching metal. we adjust and fix that and still back to square one. the truck wont start...just a single click.

we pushed the truck down the street and he popped the clutch and the engine turned over and it started.

so here's where we are at:
1) the starter is getting power. i verified it with my multi meter and it was showing 12.56 volts.

2) i know for a fact the thin gauge wire that activates the solenoid is getting power b/c it kept blowing the fuse and when we fixed that it still gets power on crank.

3) the ground wire is good because its bolted directly to the bolt holding the starter to the trans.

only thing i could think of is maybe there's corrosion inside of the wire leading to the starter. it gets voltage but not enough amperage or the voltage possibly drops on crank when there's a load on it.

sorry this is long but i wanted to make sure i got all the info out there. anybody have any suggestions as to what it could be??

thanks

 

[martin]

Sounds like you're on the right track. It's a bad connection somewhere, they can be a bear to find. It could be on either the pos or neg side. You can use a booster cable to bypass sections in your cable to assist in finding the area with the problem. Or if you have dvom check each joint starting from the battery and have someone try to start the truck, you will have a substantial voltage drop when you find the joint with the problem.

 

[srteach]

Check the starter amperage draw. It should not drop beyond 11.4 when attempting to start. Pull the coil wire while cranking for this test.
Corrosion or break in the wires is possible.The other (long shot) possibility is an internal short on the starter motor windings.

 

[Snowboarder7710]

thanks for the replies.. its raining like crazy here now...so we are going to look at this again on monday. i couldnt get my meter on it when he was cranking because the truck was on the driveway and not much room without a jack and i was too afraid to hang out under there without anything to support it.

im going to try a jumper wire on it first and hopefully it cranks. the new starter is on there now so that is good. are there any other relays in the engine compartment? he didnt get a manual when he bought the truck in october so we werent able to check.

 

[adsm08]

Check for the Neutral sense switch. This is NOT the same as the neutral safety switch. The Safety switch is on the clutch pedal, the sense switch, which tells the computer how much amperage to send to the starter based on the trans being in a gear or not, is located in the passenger's side of the tranny top plate. I forgot to plug it in when I swapped transmissions last month and mine did the exact same thing, click, and nothing.

unplug it, jumper the harness closed, and see if it starts.

 

[Snowboarder7710]

awesome...thanks so much for all the suggestions! ill definitely check out that neutral sense switch as well. is it easy to see/reach from the bottom of the truck?

 

[adsm08]

awesome...thanks so much for all the suggestions! ill definitely check out that neutral sense switch as well. is it easy to see/reach from the bottom of the truck?

yeah, If you lay under the truck, feet pointing out the driver's side, right under the shifter, and look straight up, you should see it coming out the side of the trans, i can see and touch mine, no prob.

They are not a common failure item, but I know from recent and first hand experience that if it is failed open, it can cause this exact symptom.

 

[Snowboarder7710]

yeah, If you lay under the truck, feet pointing out the driver's side, right under the shifter, and look straight up, you should see it coming out the side of the trans, i can see and touch mine, no prob.

They are not a common failure item, but I know from recent and first hand experience that if it is failed open, it can cause this exact symptom.

thanks for the description...we are going to be taking a look at it tomorrow night at work. i made a line of 4awg wire with a loop ring and clamp on the ends and we are going to see if that allows the starter to crank in case there's corrosion in the wire. if that doesnt work then ill be taking a look at that switch!

 

[adsm08]

cool. hope you get her running again. always a good day when a ranger gets back on the road.

 

[Snowboarder7710]

great news! we found out it wasnt the starter at all. we pulled the autolite one and returned it and he got his original back. turns out the battery terminals have been replaced...i noticed it after i was looking at it for a little bit....only reason to replace them would be that the old ones were corroded to crap. he just bought this truck in oct. i ran a new wire to the starter and also ran a new ground off the battery. solved all the problems!!!
adsm08, i checked the plug but nothing was wrong with it!!

thanks everyone for the suggestions and help!! now the truck starts up quicker thanks to the new cables.

 

[adsm08]

Great. I'm glad you found it. Like I said, my idea isn't a common failure item, it was just an idea.

 

[TaddeoEG]

Congrats. Lesson I learned messing with my 82 Harley Shovelhead is to pull and clean EVERY POSSIBLE connection point when you have starting problems. It doesn't take much corrosion to drop the load down below what the starting system needs to operate.

Glad you got it back running.