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Old Apr 19, 2006 | 02:03 PM
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What is this wire?

I found a burnt wire on my 85 F150 the other day, I don't know how long its been like that. So I soldered a new wire in place and now my charging guage is jumping slightly.. Can anybody tell me what the wire is?
This is where it starts.. It then goes around the front then back to some sort of relay or something on the drivers side firewall.

 
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Old Apr 19, 2006 | 02:51 PM
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Looks like the wire you repaired goes to the starter relay on the fender well. Not sure about the relay on the firewall but what color is the wire you are referring to?

John
 
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Old Apr 19, 2006 | 03:03 PM
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The wire is yellow. On the bottom picture, its the first wire left to right in that little box. I don't know what the color of the wire that goes to the starter relay was... A dark color probably.. maybe dark blue or black or grey??? It was pretty much completely fried.

Edit: It goes from the starter relay to a fusible link... Thats where it changes from the fried wire to the yellow wire.
 

Last edited by jpjahn; Apr 19, 2006 at 03:06 PM.
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Old Apr 19, 2006 | 07:51 PM
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If you take this wire off the starter solenoid(relay), is the truck completely dead?
 
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Old Apr 19, 2006 | 08:19 PM
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No, I had been driving it around for who knows how long before I noticed the wire.
 
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Old Apr 20, 2006 | 06:40 PM
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Does your horn work? I am guessing the little box the wire ran to might be the horn relay. If your horn works, take the mystery wire off again and see if the horn still works.
 
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Old Apr 20, 2006 | 07:51 PM
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Just tried it, and the horn works both ways...
The orange wire under the yellow wire in the second picture follows the same path but instead of going to the starter relay, it goes to somewhere around the alternator..
 
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Old Apr 20, 2006 | 10:09 PM
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That orange wire sounds like the alternator output wire.

What you have going on here is the large terminal on the starter relay is were Ford always picks up the main power to run the whole electrical system. It's were the alternator sends it's power, were the fuse box gets it's power, and anything else they want to run. You will see many fusible links in this area and also many factory splices as the power is spread to the headlight switch, the fuse box, ignition switch, etc.

I really do not know what the little box is that the yellow wire is feeding. It must not be that important because you would have noticed something not working. I thought for sure it was the horn relay.
 
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