On a 2000 5.4 its the same as my truck and I know my truck...First of all the starter has nothing to do with the truck having no power ever in any way..you can take the wires off it and the truck will have power. if there was a short you would have a fire...now onto the problem. you have a bad connection from the battery to where ever. not hard to find all you need is a test light when its doing its no power thing....My guess is its a connection on the battery or ground...Also could be a battery with internal issue...try a test light on battery when it goes dead. see if the battery disconnected internally. If not then check with light at solenoid on pass firewall. Check relay box fusable link connectors etc...I could find the problem in less than 5 mins if it is actively having its issue. only because I know how electricity works and I know that truck.
Get to it...fix it.


Dick

 

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so tell me what are you thoughts now, are you still bitching about driving your wife's truck?

 

First make sure you have power by having the battery checked or replace it if it is old. Buy a Motorcraft battery or Sears Diehard. Most retailers will check battery and charging system for free. Or Wear protective vinyl/latex gloves and protect eyes with goggles. Charge it fully overnight with a battery charger after you disconnect terminals and clean everything with copious amounts of water with sodium bicarbonate. Wire brush metal terminals of battery cables. With good clean metal test battery and replace if necessary and install with dielectric grease.

 

I'm sure this will help the OP with his electrical issue.

 

sorry, believe it or not I took some strong Meds last night and don't remember posting that. it is not like me to go off like that, I apologize to all here.

 

I don't even know where that came from?????

 

I may have missed the answer to this one when reading these pages, but one thing that needs to be answered first.
When the truck has no power, is the battery actually low? When you are having the no power problem, have you ever put a volt meter on the battery to see if it is actually low? Just because there is no power to the parts does not mean the battery is dead.
I have occasionally had the starter do this same thing. Not common at all, but not unheard of. Think of how the starter works. When you turn the key all of the way over to the start position, while the starter is turning the system cuts power to everything else. This guarantees that you get the full voltage to the starter. The headlights will shut off, the radio will shut down etc. when cranking on the starter.
Also if you do have a short somewhere when you crank the starter it can do the same thing. The truck will lose all power accessories for a second or two or a minute or two, or longer.
Whenever a mechanic suggests to start hanging parts to find a problem I get nervous. I know for a fact from my years as a mechanic that sometimes that is the only way to locate a problem..... but I also know that mechanics will do that to make their money. Especially if the shop pays them by the book hour. A mechanic I worked with used to work for a Dodge dealership. The dealership paid their mechanics by the book hour. If they had to change an alternator for example, the alternator booked at 1 hour to change. (just throwing numbers out there). So, the mechanics got paid for 1 hour to change the alternator. If he was good he could get it done in a half hour, but would still get paid for 1 hour. The problem with this method of salary is the hourly rate did not cover diagnostics. If it took the mechanic 2 hours to decide the alternator was bad he still only got paid for 1 hour. The reason my friend quit that job was because of this very problem. He got paid book hour plus commission. So, in a problem like yours he didn't make much money chasing circuit shorts, but if he changed the starter he got paid book hours for that plus a commission for selling a starter. If it worked he was the hero for finding the problem. If it did not work, he still got paid and could tell the customer that there were more problems than just the starter.
That was 20 years ago, so I don't know if shops still pay that way. Back when I was a mechanic it was common practice for shops to pay by book hour. The other problem with that was the service manager. If he didn't like a mechanic he would assign all of the diagnostic problems to him and all of the known repairs to others.

 

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