Ok, I looked all over, and I maybe blind, but I didn't see a search function for the forum, so I'll ask my question, and accept the ridicule if the search is obvious.

My friend has a 1997 2wd Expedition, 4.6L automatic. I've never touched one of these before, the only work I've done on Ford products, was washing them for a year in high school, and replacing a starter on a 1986 Bronco, so I really out of my league here. My experience is mainly with Toyota pickups and German cars. (Audi and BMW)

Well here's what has happened. He called me when he was on his way back from PA to here in OH after spring break was over. He was driving and all of a sudden, he would loose pretty much all electrical power, headlights, etc all dim, loss of power from the engine, like it had been shut off. Typically when this happened he heard something that sounded like AM radio static. Well he called me I told him to check his battery terminal etc, he did couldn't see anything wrong really, and he had to get back to campus, so he kept driving. We both believed he was hearing some kind of sparking from a short circuit etc and we agreed if it became severe, just to stop driving it and get it towed.

Well he got back just fine, and decided to take it bowling last night. It acted up as he drove out there, same symptoms as before. They got there, bowled and when they came back out it was completely dead, no lights, no clicks, nothing. So we go back out there this morning, and I take a reading off the battery, and it is flat dead. 0V. I unhook it and then it reads 5V or so. Well we take it over the the Autozone, and of course they tell us it is dead. So we figured the battery was the problem to begin with. So we get a new one, take it back over and proceed to hook it up. Right before we did though, I decided to take a continuity reading across the terminals. I do, and there is no resistance between positive and negative. Now I know that is a bad thing, and that hooking a battery up like that is a bad idea. So I start tracing wires from the terminal best I can. The two fusible links on the firewall are fine and in place, so I decide it must be the wire that heads down to the starter. I traced it down, and notice it goes to the frame for support and then to the starter. Its raining like crazy and about 35 degress outside, but I crawl under it and look up at the starter. I wiggle on the wire a bit seeing if it was shorted etc, but it was too dark to really see, and we had no flash light. Well I get back up and take another reading, and now there is a high resistance between positive and nuetral. So we hook the battery back up, and all is well, at least we have lights etc. When he goes to start it, we get nothing but the solenoid click, no turning etc. This is where we left it deciding we should wait for a better day to mess with it.

So my question is does anyone have any idea what could be wrong? My next move is to pull all the cables from the starter and inspect them for exposed conductor etc, but is there something obvious that could be wrong, could it be the starter, is this common? Thanks for your help!

 

I swear it wasn't there earlier, but I found it, maybe it only shows up if you register? Anyways, I will search but if anyone has any quick ideas, feel free to post.