Ticking sound - won't start
 

My 76 F250 with a 460 won't start. Just get a rapid loud ticking sound when I turn the key. Changed the relay beside the battery - no improvement, removed and had the starter checked - nothing wrong there. Charged battery - 14 volts. Hmmm... could it be the wiring to the relay or from the relay to the starter? This truck is on a isolated island so I don't get to play with it anytime - need advice. Thanks!

Mine was the cable from the solenoid to the starter, looked good but, was not able to carry the load required. Replaced it and all was fine. -Ed

That distinctive tick is from:
Bad or un-charged Battery ( Battery may have sulfated and is shorting inside becoming bad or Bad is weak)
Bad battery connections (corrosion on battery post and/or Battery cable end or Bad ground strap connection)
Bad cables ( corrosion underneath the insulation near the end of the cable)
Bad starter relay (won't connect tab for battery power to large lug connection)

Here is a trick I use to test the starter on the truck.Get out a pair of jumper cables and hook one wire directly to the starter.Then touch the other end of the jumper cables to the positive side of the battery. If the starter does spin turn on the key and touch the cable to the battery again to start it to make it home.

This method has saved my a$$ several times.good luck


Tim

77, Mil1ion & tim - thank you, I'll check the battery terminals and double up with my jump cables to isolate/check each electrical wire. Will report back soon.

Also, showing 14 volts at the battery means nothing. You need to load test the battery to see if has enough amperage to turn over the starter. Batteries will show normal voltage and be completely worthless to start a vehicle.

Checked the battery voltage yesterday - showed about 11 volts. Battery hydrometer shows all battery cells down too low on the specific gravity scale. Checked all leads which seem to be good. (found a piece of 12 gauge household wire spliced into part of the ignition! Replaced it.) Cleaned everything, still no improvement. My neighbour is away for the weekend so can't get a jump...
Snowdog - I think you are right. It's got to be a bad battery. I'll borrow a proper battery tester next time I get to the vehicle.
Will report back...

Went through all this on Friday in front of the scrap yard. :)

A gal needed a jump, the scrap yard guys provided the jumper cables, I pulled my '75 over and it still just clicked.

All sorts of ideas were thrown around what was wrong. :/

I got my -analog!- meter out. :) I didn't have any better idea than anyone else what was wrong but doggonit using a meter I could sure as anything... find out exactly what was wrong using a meter. Believe it? :)

No guessing.
Just finding and knowing.

Put the meter leads on something... "try it"
Put the meter leads somewhere else... "try it"

The third and last place I put the meter leads was touching the exposed wire of the main starter cables. Full voltage... "try it" meter went all the way dead until the key was let off again.

It was the connections between the cables and the clamps. Didn't bother to figure out which one... figured right then I'd clean 'em both anyway.

Man you should have heard how good the battery etc was after just cleaning up, oiling and putting back together those two connections. :) She'd been having trouble for a while and fixing to buy a new battery when she got the money!

Undertsanding Ohms Law (algebra) and how to use a meter (science class) is one of those things that every high school student in this country could know. (instead of being told that a javelina is more closly related to a deer than a hog and other worthless crap like that ;)

If you own an "old clunker" (that's why your're here I guess;) it'll pay to know how to do this too.

You have to want to know tho.
Just ask, right here.
To force feed you we will need a doctor's orders. ;)

She was watching me close and said she wanted to learn how to fix stuff.

I had told her that the main thing to know is motor oil on the battery connections was the way to prevent this problem.

It took me like 15 years to convince my dad, just because he'd never heard it from anyone else but this dumb ditchdigger, that battery connections needed motor oil. :) What's so hard to believe about it? Motor oil has buffers in it.

That and the fact that analog meters are the way to go for troubleshooting are things I'm ready to defend and not back down on, ok? :)

BTDT :)

Alvin in AZ (retired railroad signalape)

Alvin, thanks... I suspected that the main cable to the starter could be bad, so I connected my jumper cable directly to the terminal on the starter and then touched the other end to the battery. You could hear the starter click loudly once each time I touched the pos on the battery, but the starter didn't spin. It's got to be the battery in my case...Could I be wrong? You bet.

I take your point about people learning some useless stuff in school (I was a high school Biology teacher for almost 30 years). At least my kids know the difference betwenn a Phillips screw driver and a Robertson. Cheers!

Robertson????

Sorry - forgot that "Robertson" is a Canuck term. It is a square head screwdriver very popular up here in the North but perhaps not too common in the States. Robertson was the inventor who tried to get Henry Ford to use the squarehead design screws in the Model T. They ended up fighting over the rights and Ford went with the Phillips design.
What's real handy about squarehead screws is that they stick on the end of the screwdriver/drilldriver very tight - there is no slipping at all.
Then there's TORX...

Saturday - got back to the truck (finally) with a battery 'load tester'. Sure enough, the tester reads "WEAK". My neighbour gave me a jump and she started right up - no more ticking sound. Specific Gravity is over 1.225, so the problem is the battery after all - there goes another $115 plus taxes and enviro levy.
The battery lasted 3 years - not too impressive but i guess it must be all sulfated up inside due to underuse. Thanks everyone for the advice - this time the problem was the simplest one after all.

Saturday the 14th, finally got back to the truck with a new (730 cranking amp) battery. Engine started right up (no ticking) and then 20 mins later started up as fast with a warm engine. I feel just a little stupid about this problem because the engine has never started properly when hot right from the time I bought the truck. The previous owner said the battery was "almost new" and gullible me believed him. Hot start-ups were always a labored business with the starter barely turning the engine over and now I know why...it wasn't an over heated starter or bad starter wire; it wasn't the solenoid either, the battery was buggered all along! Live and learn. Thanks again everyone for all the advice.

I watched a guy at Canadian Tire one time go through 3 batteries off the shelf before he found on that worked .....to sell a the customer.

Brand spanking new batteries can be faulty from the plant.

They can develop a short within themselves or sulfate right on the shelf.

Glad you are back up and running :)

Two words: Solenoid, starter cables.