I have the 2002 F-250 5.4L . CCLB 4WD flavor and put a starter in back in May of this year. Without explanation, it starts this pattern of no crank, no start. Sometimes it'll start right up other times it takes 2,3 or even 4 turns of the key for it to turn over. Battery is reading 12.4 volts and everything else checks out. So, I ran that one back to O'Reilly's and they gave me a new one. Installed and threaded the 3 bolts. Mine is the 6,9 and 12 position. The 6 and 12 bolts (M8) threaded fine and I snugged them up. Bolt at the 9 O'clock position didn't seem to grab and maybe a guy went 1 more half turn than he should have. Should I worry about this one if the top and bottom bolts are snug? Should I wrap very thin wire around the threads and try to thread it back in? Should I use Blue Loctite? Truck started up fine twice at separate intervals, so far so good. Let me know.
Thanks,
PJ
P
Position of the 9 o'clock bolt is hidden but that's the middle bolt that didn't snug as designed.

 

Did you take the bolt out and look at it to see if it has threads?

 

You could add an extra nut to take up the slack, and use the top nut to tighten everything down. Might not be a bad idea to locktight anything you put together, if you truck runs as heavy as mine I'm sure they will loosen over time

Do you think you could post a few pics of everything taken out of the truck? Locations and such? I'm thinking I might be in your boat with the "no starting" thing and may also need a new switch. It will sometimes fire right up, and other times it acts like the battery is dead, barely trying to crank, then 3rd try cranking right over. Batteries both new, cables cleaned and read out fine.

Side note, did you try putting a multimeter on the starter? To see if it read out correctly? I am assuming (maybe incorrectly) that the starter acts a bit like a household fuse box fuse, and you can put a probe on either end to test for continuity

 

I grabbed the starter and tried to move it and the 2 snug bolts are doing their thing and the 9 o'clock bolt is hanging in there. It's not loose at all, maybe this weekend I'll back it out, put some wire around the threads and send it back in.

Cluster of wires. One goes to the fuse box, one to the starter and the one is a vexing issue for me. Got to trace it down this weekend.

Red + goes directly to Battery. Small white with green stripe goes to a relay at top top of the engine. Negative grounded and goes to battery up top.

This wire is on the starter tied to the other small lug on the starter solenoid.
This start, no start issue is bugging me. Can we rule out the starter switch under the dash? Had the battery tested and alternator too at O'Reilly's Battery was at 12.6 running and alternator was fine. Shop manager seems to think it might be the cluster of wires that is on the Pos side and is clustered together with heat shrink. He thinks this fusible link is a possible cause. I don't have a Multimeter so can't test for anything. The pattern of "no start, no crank", is intermittent at best. Frustrating at best.

 

Happy to hear that your starting issue is resolved. Basically, the start switch is located on the steering wheel in the column or dash area.

 

You shouldn’t be doing any electrical diagnostics without a test light and a multimeter. A multimeter is about $3.00 at Harbor Freight. No excuse not to buy one.

— Dave

 

Your wiring looks MUCH cleaner than mine! The previous guy decided to do some Frankenstein experiments and everyting is a MESS now.

For anyone else facing the random "start, no start" issue, mine seems to be the ground. Years ago I was told the batteries didn't need to be grounded to the truck, so they just weren't. I don't know WHY it didn't cause issues before, although maybe it did since my horse trailer lights never worked right and I ended up ripping the wiring apart trying to figure it out. But this year it causes major starting issues. Finally after convincing my husband to at least TRY grounding both batteries, it seemed to work.

But the driver's side battery just does NOT want to stay connected at the ground. The slightest wiggle room will cause it to "start, no start".

I almost was stranded yesterday in the boondocks when it refused to start. I had been driving with my lights on and there was NO JUICE WHATSOEVER. Not even dash lights. I only had a backup camera screen that had a quick detach wiring set, and was able to stick the positive and negative wires on tboth batteries to test for "juice". Camera fired up on both batteries so I knew they had SOME juice and at least dash lights should work.

Next I put the key in the ignition half a turn and left the door open while I wiggled the ground wire. Sure enough, I began to hear the beeping from inside the truck. I didn't have any wrenches or anytyhing DECENT in my truck, but I had a really big nut off a bolt, so I hammered it in between the battery post and the ground wire to "take up the slack" and tried turning on the truck and BOOM, fired right up. Drove it to AutoZone and bought a new 2 gauge battery cable line and swapped them out. Added a few washers and extra nuts to try to keep it tight, but that problem is for another thread ;D

But, in a nutshell, it SEEMS to have solved my random starting issue

 

This wire goes to a lug on the Starter solenoid. It then travels along the fire wall and my guess is that at the fuse box it is tied into the Starter Switch Relay. I changed out the Starter Switch Relay at the fuse box and I still have infrequent "No Crank, No Start" issues.
The other day I had 5 attempts at starting, sounds like a thud. Then it started after I jimmied some wires at the battery around. Going to put a wire to the thin wire on the starter solenoid and see what power comes of it.
The connection is a single pin style. If someone wanted to change it how could you replicate that pin style?
Today, I replaced the lead from the solenild that joins this Ignition switch wire. Previosly, I re-used the wire that was on the old starter. I wire brushed the Red (+) cable lug that attached to the solenoid and reattached. I did a bunch of "starts" and so far all is good. I'll know in a week what the outcome is.

 

Update: The white wire with the heat shrink was an original jumper wire to the starter. I'm not sure how old it was but I reused it for the last 2 starters. When I began to troubleshoot issues with "No crank, No start", I didn't think to change this wire. I had saved the jumper wire from starter I bought in July, cut back some of the white wire, got good crimp style connectors, used tape and a heat shrink. I also wire brushed the Red cable that goes directly to the battery, it had some corrosion and shined it up to reveal the copper connector. It's to the left of the white aire and tightens around the other lug. Ran it Sat and Sun and so far has cranked every time. In a week I'll know for sure if this little fix was it.