Hi all

I have a 96 F250 460/5spd that up until about 2 weeks ago gave me no troubles. Drove around all morning and pulled in my drive..went to start 2 hours later and nothing. Do have dash lights and power, but not enough juice to trun the truck over. Replaced solenoid on inner fender and same problem existed. Brought out the battery charger, put a quick 10 min charge on it and it fired (while I had the battery charger hooked up.) Great, so I know it's the battery...purchased a brand new one, installed it, made sure it started/ran and parked it. Fast forward one week and with a snowstorm coming (naturally), it's back to square one. No symptoms, signs, warnings up until 2 weeks ago...thoughts? Thanks in advance..

 

Sounds like it's not charging. First thing to do is check the "generator/voltage regulator" fuse.

 

Well, just verified the battery is fully charged..hit the starter with a hammer a few times but nothing. My guess is starter...or is there some type of fuse or switch that engages the starter when the clutch pedal is depressed? 28 degrees..not fun!

 

There is a clutch pedal switch that won't allow the starter to turn unless the clutch is depressed.
Did you try jumping our the starter solinoid? I'm not saying that's your problem but that will just bypass all your saftey switches and the key.

Try setting the park brake put the tranny in neutral turn the key to ON and jump out the solinoid with a big screwdriver (that you don't mind weld marks on).
if this works then it's somewhere between key and solioid.

 

Instead of jumping it at the solenoid, i would jump it at the starter relay.

Pull the wire with the rubber boot off of the relay & jump 12 volts to that pin.

Does it crank?

 

Look at the negative battery cable check it at the battery and where it bolts to the engine look really good pull on it make sure its clean and tight! I had the same thing happen to me I found the problem where the cable bolts to the block it looked good but when I pulled on it the terminal on the end of the cable broke right off !!

 

Thanks for the help guys, I got snowed under today with 18" so not much T-shooting...I want to start with the clutch pedal switch. Can anyone direct me exactl where to look and what to check? After 24 hours of thought it seems like this may be the culprit, as the starter gave no indication of being bad before this mystery started. Thanks again, big help!