starting problems

[fordman]

we have this 71 parts truck. the starter relay was unhooked when we go it. i put it back together correctly but i didnt bolt it to the fender. i did hold it to the fender after scratching the paint off of it. i then tried to jump the relay with a screwdriver. nothing happened. no sparking no buzzing no start no nothing. so i changed the relay with another one i had. unknown if it was any good either. same thing no nothing. i had a battery charger hooked to the battery at the same time during this whole process. i had power to everything ; lights wiper heater motor. it all works. but i still could not get the switch to start the engine or by jumping the solinoid. i also held the shifter over to make up for a out of adjustment neutral safety switch. still nothing. like i said the rest of the truck has power but not nothing to make the relay work or starter turn. i did take the starter off and try and bench test it but for some reason i am not able to bench test any of the five starters i have here. they couldn't all be bad. i am thinking it could be the relay and the starter. but i cant find my new relay anywhere. i just had it a month ago when i was putting stuff back in the garage. so my question is what is your diagnosis. and where did i put that other relay?

[Thunderfoot]

Take your volt meter or test light and be sure that where you were trying to ground the solenoid on the fender is a good ground to the battery, maybe the fender is not grounding good.
To bench test the starters I use jumper cables, hook the negative to one of the mount ears and touch the positive to the power lug. Should jump and spin over.
Now your new starter solenoid is......




Right where you left it....

[fordman]

i never thought about the inner fender not being a very good ground. it is almost rusted off at the bracket to the cab. i'll run a direct ground to the battery and see what happens. i did find another noid but its for a newer truck or some other application. i dont know if it will work or not. i was bench testing starters with my battery charger today. i should have ran the charge to the battery and the cable from the battery to the starter.

[Thunderfoot]

Yeah, a small battery charger won’t have enough nuts (amps) to run a starter...
The newer solenoid will work just fine; they just don't have the 2nd small terminal on them for the 12V boost to the coil for cold starts. The newer electronic ignitions run 12V at the coil all the time and just retard the timing to help with cold starts.

[fordman]

this is a old charger. it will do more than any chinese made charger will do. thats why i was doing it that way. it has worked before. so i'm not to sure about the condition of the starter either. i did find a newer relay it fits on a 93 and 94 i have. itlooks brand new. it does have four terminals. two large and two small marked "s" and "i". i would guess red would go on "s" and brown on "i"

[QC]

I think you will have better luck testing starters with a battery and good jumper cables. $10 jumper cables won't do it.
The starter testers they have at the parts stores have batteries in them to crank the starters. These Ford starters need quite a bit of current to suck down the lever under that bump that kicks out the drive and closes the contacts inside.

[fordman]

i dont know why i couldnt get the starters to bech test. but i was able to bech test them today by just letting them sit on the inner fender and running a jump wire to the positive battery while the battery charger was charging the battery. we put the starter back on. apoured some gas in the carb and grounded the relay to the negative battey cable and it fired but wouldn't run. the fuel pump was bad. we also figured out that the neutral safety switch was bad. we replaced the nss and put a new fuel pump on and got to cold to wait on fuel to wrok itself up to the carb and quit. but it did run for a second or two with just dumping fuel down the carb. so we now have a running 390 for sale. i will get out there on monday and get the fuel up to the carb and see how good it really runs then.

[Banjo]

yeah, the deal about high quality jumper cables will pay for itself in long run, I bought a $50 set and so wished I had when I was young.