Alright, so I took my Bronco out yesterday for the first time in a month. Everything was running fine until I ran it thru the car wash. Afterwards I drove for several miles and parked it for about 10 minutes. When I went to restart it, there was rapid clicking coming from under the hood. I got out and checked while my daughter attempted to crank the truck. The clicking was coming from the starter relay. I checked for loose wires and did what most men would do and gave the starter relay a good bump. She fired up like a champ and we were on our way. Ran fine the rest of the day and that night. Multiple stops and starts without any issues. The next morning went to start her up and nothing, no clicks, no noise, nothing. The dash, radio and lights all worked. I noticed the fusible link at the starter relay was pretty frayed so I replaced it and installed a new starter relay just to be safe. Now when I go to crank it I get a single click and everything goes dead in the cab (lights, radio). If i remove the key and wait a few minutes, power comes back on, but as soon as I attempt to crank it the same thing happens. A single click and all power lost. Any ideas on what the problem is? Other than me being too rushed and lazy to wash it by hand like I usually do.

 

While it could be a couple things, acts like bad ground from battery to block. I'd clean the battery terminals while you're at it.

 

2X above ex spirt's advice. (hiya Richard!).
Yeayha, sounds like a "run down battery" type of thing.
car wash might have been co in ce dence.
battery tap may have completed a poor circit.
Get back 2 us on resulta of his suggestion if you'd like.

Welcome to the forum. FTE needs more EBs. Pl;enty of wisdome here n w/o the egos by the most part. Stick around! Folks here helped me rebuild a carb I babied on for 27 yrs. Saved money, time n from thousands of miles aqway. (& I needed a lot of hand holding n 3 days 2 get a few hr job done - prts man gave me the wrong product! & I aint an even close to a 1/2 a^#ed mechanic.)

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