Found a 1987 F150 XLT Lariat Singe Cab, 4x4, manual transmission, Inline 6 dual tanks on a farm for $125. It has 230,250 miles, a rebuilt motor and no exhaust after the rear cat. It turns over, and with starter fluid will run but it doesnt get any gas from the fuel pumps, I am aware that it has 3! Also the wiring is a mess.


In the engine compartment there is a black wire with a red stripe near the driver sode cabin not connecting to anything but appears to run down into the round connector that goes into the cabin near the steering column. On the otherside I couldnt find it coming out and near there is another black wire with a red stripe and a large black connector but there isnt anoter connector nearby and I cant find this wire in the haynes manual. Its the spotted again behind the drivers kick panel going down near the floor and again along the drivers fram rail behind the front gas tank going to the rear.


On the ither side of the steering column is two green wires one with I think a yellow stripe going into a connector but one of them isnt connected to another wire again, not a wire near by.


The fuel gauge is quite past full and doesnt change when I flip the switch. How can I test if the switch or fuel relay is bad? Also the relay and other connectirs in the engine bay arent rusted but are geeenish? Also when starting the car I cannot hear any of the fuel pumps turn on..

 

I would ignore the loose wires for now, so long as they are not going to touch any metal. If they are a little tape will fix that for now. You need to pick your battles and stick with it, if you happen to run into one of these loose wires during one of your troubleshooting battles, then you will have more of a clue what the wire may be for.

What I would first concentrate on would be getting fuel to the engine. See if you can do some searching and find the inertia switch. It's usually mounted under the dash on the firewall, or behind the pass side kick panel. It's a switch that trips and shuts the fuel pumps off during a accident and has a reset switch.

If you find it and it seems ok, then I would get a testlight and poke the wire going to the switch and leaving the switch. If you have no power when you cycle the key on either wire, you know your problem with the pumps is upstream, and I would find the fuel pump relay. If you have power at the inertia switch on the wiring when the key is cycled, then you know your problem is from there to the pumps.

 

Thanks for the reply, its 2am central time and soon as I get off work 5pm ill look into it. I actually got some of it figured out lol some of what I typed up there was wrong because of colors but yea. I think the relay may be bad? I got power on every wire but the brown and when jumping from red to brown and turning the key on the fuel pump would turn on. Is this okay to do? i will try your reccomendation soon as Im off worl

 

Greenish-blue connectors are bad connections, that is the color of copper oxide (AKA corrosion). I would imagine that if you did an ohm test, it would be over 2000 ohms like my towing harness did before I rebuilt it. GOOD connections will read 0.7 ohms or less.

Can you get a picture of the corroded connectors? I can get you in the right direction to get new ones.

 

Sure can, I am about to clock in right now but soon as I get off. I am limited in money

 

Well got let home. And I know you said not to worry about it but that purple and orange wire popped up again











Nice photo uploader!

 

I can see a small bit of corrosion on the FEMALE terminals inside the blue/green (let's call it Blue from now on) connector, and a TINY bit on the MALE terminals as well. It's not horrendous like in my trailer subharness, but some contact cleaner would certainly help. Try visiting your local computer supply store (such as Micro Center or Radio Shack) and give the terminals a thorough dousing to loosen the gunk enough to wipe off. Overall, they look decent for being nearly 30 years old.

Wish I had a service manual CD going back that far so I could identify the connector's origin and hopefully find you some fresh terminals direct from the manufacturer. Try looking for any markings or numbers on it? That's how I figured out the 97-02 Trip Computers & Heater blend door actuators use connectors from Yazaki

 

We dont have radioshack anymore here in Aberdeen, SD I thought they went out of business? There is some labeling on top of the fuel pump relay and I think some on the female connector I will look next time Im back over by my place. As for using this as a daily driver my dad said I will need 2 new doors and a new passenger front fender and maybe alignment on the drivers side front fender because all the rain and snow that will get through (passenger side you can actually see into the cabin) is this true to any extent? My native friend refers to it as my first rez truck and ill be just fine hes drkven one in far worse condition

 

That sounds like rust has eaten the sheet metal in the area you described. Hopefully someone can snap a picture of what it should look like there so you can see the extent of the damage. The same ara was rotted out on Aaron Cake's 1976 Mazda Cosmo project car too.

Radio Shack is long gone here in Lancaster, OH too. Kinda sucks, but try asking a question about potentiometers to anyone behind the counter these days...lol In the end, they were just another consumer cell phone store. Kmart just went under her too for the same reason. Kinda sucks about Big Lots being gone, many fun awesome things happened there like Atari 2600 games for $1.

Anyway, Micro Center has contact cleaner for pretty cheap. I'm sure there's one semi-close to you.

 

That truck is a labor of love right there.

As a practical matter the retail electronics contact cleaners are mostly petroleum solvents. You can easily roll yer own or get things rolling with stuff in your garage. Acetone and ATF makes a dandy rust-buster and it will also clean up electric contacts very well. It may be rough on certain plastics.

A lot of the commercial products won't do anything with that kind of corrosion anyway except lighten your wallet they are designed to blow off dust from computer boards, not 30 years of road grime and heavy deposits.

 

Ill update this comment within about 30 minutes with some nice and more pictures well as much as this crapple can do lol missing android really bad! Nearest town that may is Sioux Falls and I cant go. Ive been jobless for the last month i just started today well technically tomorrow just did some paperwork today so thatll be nice. Gotta pay rent plus like a $2K tow bill cuz these guys are jackasses and then catchup on 2 car loans, 4 months behind each car payments and get car insurance and try to move to sioux falls and fix up all three of my vehicles lol!! Should be a fun next 2 months! I did go to Oreillys and they have a fuel pump relay in stock for $13 and contains but the male and female adapater. Ill probably get both relays and replace all the other connectors asap sonce they are in the same condition. Should I replace all the wires too with the harnesses being in this condition?? If youre curious, I have my 86 mitsubishi starion esi-r in need of body work and new rear axle and passenger rear suspension from accident, maybe new turbo. 90 f150 351W extended cab just needs spark plug wire and steering pump, and the 87 f150 we are talkin about now. Starion loan of $2500 since last july owe ~$2K, $2K loan on 90 f150 since october 15, owe $1200











I think the firing order is wrong.. The book says it goes a different way

 

Nevernind its correct. 15 is too young, 36 is too old, 24 is just right