Electrical problem or weak battery

[OldRedFord]

I was messing around with my truck today when I released some of the all important smoke out of the battery cable between the battery and relay. The end of the cable where it attaches to the battery side of the starter relay was quite toasty. Also at the same time I saw sparks fly from the area of the relay. The wire that ties into the fusable link from the relay was too hot to touch.

I checked the obvious for bad or loose grounds. Everything is good and tight. Right after all that I quick hit the key again and then the starter just struggled to turn the motor over. So I am wondering if the cause of all this was a weak battery or if there is something else that has shown up?

[fordman]

did it spin over good before this happened?

[OldRedFord]

did it spin over good before this happened?

Yes it did.

[fordman]

it could have been the relay bolt was damaged some how. mayeb it got blackened or even melted the end of the botl and or disc that contacts the bolt when you start the truck. charge the battery voer night and try to start it tomorrow. you can kind of bypass the realy by shortign over witha screwdriver to the front large botl and the front small bolt.

[OldRedFord]

Ill try swaping out the starter relay with a different one tomorrow and charge up the battery.

[OldRedFord]

Where does the yellow with black stripe wire that the fusable link runs into go? Im not seeing it on the wiring diagram.

[fordman]

if you lok at this diagram http://www.fordification.com/tech/wirin ... master.jpg it is wire number 38 and 38 a/b. it goes from the fender relay to the battery side of the alternator. i think this is the page to the plug my 67 has in it. i'm glad i looked at this page.

[OldRedFord]

So far here is what I have found.


The first picture is the wire coming off the starter relay and runs into the fuseable link. This is the wire that felt pretty hot. No I did not do the splice with the crimp connector in there.

The second picture is the hot wire for the horn relay. The fueseable link wire melted a grove in the insulation on this wire. Also looks like it got a bit hot where the wire is crimped into the connector.

[papabug71]

I would guess its time to replace some wires. They look factory to me. Copper wire will only take so much heat before it starts to fatigue & eventually fail.

[BobbyFord]

Sounds to me like something hot went to ground.

[OldRedFord]

Sounds to me like something hot went to ground.

Looks like the starter relay took a crap. Swapped in a new one and no smoke or sparks.

[BobbyFord]

Awesome. That was easy enough