Had a craigslister bring his 99 ford f350 super duty bring his truck in for an inspection (I planned on purchasing and did purchase)

He turned off the truck and the starter started going nuts and cranking the engine about 5 seconds after shutoff.

Immediately unplugged batteries and unhooked starter so we could see how it ran and whatnot without the starter going nuts (He just installed a new starter from oreileys)

Drove about an hour and 15 minutes, then started having weird issues again... starter never cranked on its own after that, The windows stopped working aswell otherwise all was fairly normal.

Parked the truck for maybe an hour or two and who wouldve guessed, the light on back of the cab was lit up, the horn was blaring, and the radio was on. key out of the ignition. Pulled the GEM fuse and all was well. Fuse was out for a day, started fine, fuse was out for another day, battery is dead wont start.

I was leaning towards a bad starter at first but now im actually clueless and before i spend hours on diag i was wondering if anybody has had similar experiences, ive been searching these forums for 3 days now and I just caught the flu, im looking for the easy way out. any advice is very very very appreciated!

 

Has it been raining lately? This sounds like a leaky windshield.

Before you go "Great, smarta55, I suppose you're going to suggest I buy the extra strength blinker fluid, good for 1000 blinks." the net result of a leaky windshield is water draining down the dash and hitting the GEM. I would suggest you pull the GEM (behind the in-cab fuse box) and inspect it. If it looks like it's been wet, I use isopropyl alcohol to flush (relays removed), and blow dry with an air compressor. Ford likes to seal their relays, so they should be OK... but any relay not sealed will likely need a good Isopropyl alcohol cleaning and a drying.

If that sounds like too much work, you can put the GEM in a bowl of uncooked rice and hope for the best. This doesn't clean it, but it gets it dry.

 

That's my plan! Boss recommended ordering a new gem and drying out the fuse box. After that's done, reseal the roof lights and possibly windshield.

Previous owner took it through a car wash immediately before he got to my shop.

 

A new GEM costs a nice piece of change, guys have had great luck drying them out. Tugly's method of using alcohol sounds good, it would wash away the water and evaporate fairly quickly.

 

If your GEM is corroded it can be cleaned. 2112RUSH did a very complete write up on disassembly and cleaning. Hopefully yours is not nearly this bad but here's the write up should you need it.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ater-leak.html

 

If the area has been leaking for a while and corrosion has set in, it's gonna be laborious. That is a nice thread linked above tho.

If it's recently wet and simply needs to be dried, hang a hair dryer off the steering wheel and direct the hot air toward the fuse box. Several hours on low setting will dry it out. Remove the cover from the fuse box and open the windows to allow fresh air to circulate.

Resealing the windscreen is not very effective, from what I've seen on the web. But installing a new one is not all that expensive. Later versions of the glass have noise cancelling properties, if you are interested.

 

GOOD NEWS BOYS!

Took it apart today, gem looks spotless, I see no corrosion nor any burns, nor damage of any kind!

The fuse block on the other hand is hideous and I can only assume the inside is worse see as the issues I have been having.

I have found numerous other fuse blocks but none with the same part number, how's interchangeability on these things?

I have a yc3t-14a067-db

Local place wants anywhere from 100-300 to repair mine but I found used for $120-170 so I'm going that route.