Hello All,

1999 F-350 V-10 with 202,000 miles of severe fleet duty on it. Has an almost-new battery. Runs great in general, especially considering its history. It has been patiently awaiting my attention to fix mostly cosmetic issues. Patiently awaiting until yesterday, that is.

Yesterday, it decided it had waited long enough. It decided to take itself out for a drive without me. Step 1 of this endeavor was to start the engine, but it appears that it needs my help in order to turn the ignition switch to "run". Since I wasn't there to do this, it kept trying anyways. Some amount of time later (could have been hours, nobody knows and the truck isn't fessing up), a member of my family pulled up next to it, in the middle of its escape attempt. I got the call from 50 miles away. Could hear the poor thing in the background happily cranking itself to death. I had them grab a key and see if turning it to "run" would solve anything. It started right up. After shutting off the ignition, it continued to try to start itself. I'm guessing the starter was running while the engine was running.

After some scrambling to find the right tools without me around, the negative side of the battery was disconnected, and the escape attempt was thwarted.

It appears that the most recent rain caused this by way of a leaky windshield that I didn't know about. Funny, because It has rained many times since I've had it, and it never tried this before that I know of. I found all of these threads with the same issue:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...n-its-own.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...thout-key.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...own-again.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...taken-out.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...self-help.html

. . . and I will follow the related advice contained in them, however, I have another problem:

When I got home, I went out to fiddle with it and see what I could see. When I connected the battery, I immediately started hearing a fairly quiet noise that I haven't heard before. I thought it might be the starter maybe mostly burned up trying to turn through seized bearings or something, or maybe some other weird phenomenon left over from the escape attempt. Eventually I noticed I could feel the sound coming from the battery. Listening closer, I think it is maybe gurgling inside or something, but only when I connect the negative lead (and positive is already connected).

I've never had a battery do this before. I'm thinking the starter is burned up and is completely shorted out inside, and this is causes it to gurgle inside. More importantly, what do you all think?

Thanks!

 

Did you recently add water to the battery?

Do you have 2 batteries or just the one?

Seems like something somewhere is trying to put voltage into the battery?

 

Just the one. It's only like a month old. I haven't done anything to it besides start the engine a few times . . . then this.

 

My 99 V10 superduty scab, has decided to do thebsame thing. Is a manual 5 speed, and I had the park break set , so I thwarted it's escape.
I have a starter coming , 160.00 from NAPA .
I had the windshield replaced about November last year . So far only issues have been the sotf has quit working , mirrors aren't working .
I did follow the tutorial here to repair the fuse box .
I had a burnt trace , these boxes are made up of layers of metal sandwiched in plastic.
I soldered it back together , it ohmed out fine .
I have a new used fuse box and bcm also coming .
I removed the starter , this has 500k miles on it , and the cable from the brushes to the solenoid was smoked .

 

Wow, cool! Thanks!