my electric woes

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Aug 2, 2001 | 03:47 PM

drhist00

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my electric woes

I have a '49 F-1, Flathead V8, red Ford truck. I can not get it started for the life of me. I am new at this so perhaps I am not looking at everything right. I have replaced the Battery, the Starter, the starter cables, the starter relay, the starter switch, and a porcelen relay mounted to the wheel-well. When I turn the the key the dials in the instrament panel do move and the horn and lights do work. The only thing that happens when I push the starter button is the starter button gets real hot as does the wire that goes form the starter button to the starter relay. Now I know that there is a problem somwhere with this part of the electical system for last month the truck was running fairly well. Please help me I am stumped.
thanks
-Damian aka stumped in College Station TX

Aug 2, 2001 | 07:48 PM

jerry56f250

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my electric woes

Check your mounting surfaces & make sure that they're clean so that you have a good ground. If you have a clean surface it's possible for a rebuilt starter to be defective. Bring it back to the parts store & ask them to test it.

Aug 2, 2001 | 09:45 PM

Franklin2

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my electric woes

Take a scrap piece of wire at least 12 guage, and temporarily run it from the plus side of the battery to the small post on the starter relay. Just touch it and see if it cranks. If it's ok, then you need to look upstream back to the switch in the cab. If not, get rid of the temporary little wire, and take a jumper cable and jump the large terminals on the starter relay. If it cranks, then I would suspect the starter relay. If it doesn't, I would suspect a bad connection on one of the large cables or a bad starter. When doing the above tests, MAKE SURE the transmission is out of gear and the wheels are blocked.

Aug 21, 2001 | 09:15 AM

cigarxtc

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From: North of Tulsa, Oklahoma

my electric woes

Also, I'm sure you've already checked, but I believe these trucks have positive ground. You mentioned that you replaced the battery. Is the polarity correct on everything that you disconnected and reconnected? This is probably too little too late, but just wanted to add my two cents. BTW, I have a 50 F1 with a mustang drive train and all electronics already converted to negative ground when I got it.

Aug 22, 2001 | 08:36 AM

286merc

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From: Southern New Hampshire

my electric woes

Keep your fingers crossed that the engine isnt seized! Try turning with a wrench on the crank snout. If its frozen, remove the starter and try again, it could be jammed.

Aug 27, 2001 | 04:55 PM

Wired

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my electric woes

I have had a similar problem and found that the starter had jammed in the flywheel ( alls it did was click at the selinoid ). I put the truck in 3rd gear and rocked it back and forth till it unjammed . After I got it back in the shop I checked the drive unit to find that it had a couple of bad teeth so I replaced it and have cured the problem .

Sep 4, 2001 | 05:24 PM

Tugboatcap

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From: Gulf Coast

my electric woes

Sounds to me like you might have a modern grounded case relay. Even if it has two small posts, one is usually the same as the ground and if you connected the hot wire to the wrong post, it would cause a direct short to ground when you pressed the button.
Thanks,
Steve