I have a 1986 Ford F-250 that has had its star replaced in Fall of 2008. It suddenly had a hard time starting. The starter would go really really slow, then it would "catch", barely, and start up. It had been starting fine just days before.

I cleaned the battery cable connections, although one of the batteries had connections with the tightening bolt sort of fused into the metal, so I pried them off, then just squeezed them together and pounded them back on. They seemed tight enough, but it didn't realy make much difference.

I thought it might be the batteries since they were about 7 years old, so bought two new batteries. Still no more cold cranking amps. I then took off the negative cables where they connected to the engine block and cleaned all the gunk off of them. I also went to Tacoma Screw and got 4 new nuts and bolts to tighten up the connections back at the battery end. The only connection I haven't checked is the connections to the starter, but it's probablhy necessary to pull it off to get at them. But it still cranks over really, really slow.

Could the slow cranking just be that the starter is failing? It seems like that's all that is left...

 

Could be hydrolock. Start it, shut it off, and then immediately try to restart it.

 

How much oil/gunk is on the starter at the mating surface? I ended up running an extra ground cable from the battery neg to a starter mounting bolt to ensure I wasn't going to cook my starter from excessive resistance.

Just replacing the ends on old cables won't fix anything if they're corroded inside the insulation. Crank the engine and see if the cables heat up. If they are the problem, you can bypass them by using a standard set of jumper cables to see if the starter cranks faster. If not, it's time to clean it out, or replace/rebuild it.

 

x2 with what ihateminimum said...

 

I have to be honest here, I sort of treat this truck like a spoiled child. I totally ignore it until it makes a scene, then I cave in and buy it a bunch of new stuff to quiet it down. And I don't like working on cars/trucks any more, but I did plenty in my day, so in the interest of keeping my skills current, I occasionally take on small jobs. I do know an excellent mechanic and I feel like the answer to all of this truck's woes lies with him.

Having said that, I will admit that there is a leaky seal somewhere because the underside of that truck looks like the apocalypse. Quite a lot of oil, but oddly enough, not that much appears to be on or near the starter. It sits up just high enough to be out of the fray.

I feel like the electrical connections are good. As I'm driving it around, the charging gauge is right in the middle. Of course that's assuming I can trust any of the gauges in a late model Ford!

And as for starting again right after it's been running, that's what is really odd. Normally that thing will start up with no hesitation whatsoever, but now it's a-grinding away maybe just a fraction of a second less than what it took to start it cold.

I'm heading out now, at 6:30AM with a fresh cup of joe, to do battle with it. I think I'll wear gloves this time so that I don't spend longer washing my hands than I did loosening bolts.

 

And I found the receipt and took advantage of O'Reillys Lifetime Warranty and got it for FREE! That was awesome.

Now, I'm looking to top off the tranny fluid a little bit, but it says I need DZ-19C547-A or ESP-MSC83-C or equivalent. I wonder what the equivalent would be?

Thanks to all of you for helping me out...

 

Have someone start it for you, at night, and check all the cable connections for sparks. Thats a good indication of a faulty path.
Like ihateminimum said, If the cable heats up at the ends, their not grounding right.

 

Those warranties are worth their weight in gold for how cheaply everything is 'rebuilt' nowadays. Glad it all worked out.