Im lost so i hope someone can help me. I have a 1986 F150 with a 4.9L six. i was changing my starter solenoid monday and after i put it on, nothing worked. it acted like there was no battery. went back to autozone and found out they gave me the wrong one. i got the right one and put it on but still nothing. i tried changing both battery cables and still nothing.
im sure its blown fuse or a short but i dont know where it could be. all the fuses in the fuse box look fine.
Check to see if you have 12V at the battery. Then at the solenoid. See if you disconected your "Power" wire to your dash. If that is gone you cant crank the engine, use the radio or do anything electrical. The wire usualy runs from either the cable clamp or a spade off the hot side of the solenoid.
Hope this helps.
thanks ill go check that now. i have 12V at the battery for sure cause i checked that earlier.
another weird thing is that if my brother jumps the terminals on the starter solenoid and i turn the key, the starter will turn the engine over but it doesnt run. when he takes off the screwdriver it dies
Thats normal. I start engines under the hood that way frequently. One used to be able to buy a hand held switch that hooked in to do this.
Is this PU a carb model or fuel injected?
Check for loose wires, unpluged harnesses and other stuff. If it is fuel injected it may run rough for several weeks as the computer will lose its memory and needc to re-program itself.
its got a carb. its got a feed back one barrel. i want to switch it to a non feedback one eventually
i tried chaseing the smaller wires from my relay but its a real rats nest of wireing. i traced one wire that was spliced into five others. it looks like it was one ground that was the ground wire for five sensors.
There should be 3 or 4 fusible linked wires on the hot side (battery cable side) of your solenoid. If I remember right, the large yellow wire is the one that would kill everything in the cab, including the ignition switch. Should have a small red with blue stripe wire that engages the solenoid. I forget the other (main) colors of the other wires that should be on the battery side of the solenoid. Sounds like someone really hacked up your wiring harness, which sucks. Good luck, hope you get it figured out.
Thanks to everyone for your help. it turned out to be a combination of things. i had the wires to the solenoid on the wrong post but switching to the right one didnt fix it because the solenoid posts were stripped. i replaced the solenoid and finally switched the wires to the right post and when i turned the key it cranked....and kept cranking when i pulled the key out. turns out the new solenoid i bought was bad. after i got another new solenoid and got the wires on the right post everything worked and the engine ran great.
It may be just me but over the years I have had several starter solenoids/relays that were bad when new out of the box. Same thing with rebuilt starters.
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1983 F150 300 I6, Comp Cam 260h and lifter kit, Port/Polished head, Offy DP Manifold, Holley 4160/1848-1 465 cfm, EFI Exhaust manifolds, Walker Y Pipe to 3-Way Cat, generic Turbo Muffler, Recurved DSII, Mallory HyFire 6a & ACCEL Super Stock Coil, Taylor Spiro Pro Wires, EFI plugs.
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