My '89 is dead, what's happened?

[hacked89]

Chances are it’s the ignition switch, rod, etc along those lines in the column. It’s a bricknose thing. Jump the starter relay. If you don’t know how send pic of your solenoid.

 

[hacked89]

there’s different style relays but all the same concept. You’re going to have highlighted red below the always hot from the battery. In the purple highlighted area you’ll have S and I. S is energized when you turn the key to start. It then allows the electricity to flow from Red to Orange below. Orange is the low amp triggering wire for the starter solenoid. The starter motor when receiving the signal from the low amp line then initiates the high amp red feed and that’s what turns your engine over.

To summarize, just connect S and the always hot battery side of the starter relay with a screw driver with the truck in park and ignition turned to “on” position.

If that doesn’t do anything then the relay may be bad and you can jump red and orange at the relay.

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[MtnHaul]

Any chance the small trigger wire on the starter solenoid disconnected or got damaged? That happened to me one time while working on something unrelated.

 

[Cubey]

Any chance the small trigger wire on the starter solenoid disconnected or got damaged? That happened to me one time while working on something unrelated.

And the starter on my f250 mysteriously physically broke once. i just drove it across town, parked it, and then it was broken. had to be towed to a shop. one of the wire connections broke or something. very weird

 

[nelstomlinson]

Fuse 18 is good. No power to it when I turn the key.

I can jump across the starter solenoid on the fender, and the engine turns over.

 

[nelstomlinson]

The Motorcraft ignition switch is $70 for the '89, would be $20 for the '94 ambulance. Oh, well.

 

[Nero]

Fuse 18 is good. No power to it when I turn the key.

I can jump across the starter solenoid on the fender, and the engine turns over.

If you have no voltage at fuse 18 that makes me think you have a burned up fusible link. They are all there at the start relay on the fender.

 

[nelstomlinson]

The stupid truck started working as mysteriously as it stopped.

I went out yesterday to check voltage at Fuse 18 with the key on - I had found no voltage with the key off, of course. I turned the key, and the dash lit up, the fan came on, and then I started the engine.

The only things I did were pull that fuse out to test it, and messed about with the factory original cable from the battery terminal to the starter relay. That's factory original, the one I didn't redo while the engine was out because it looks so good. I better cut into that and redo it, too.

I have a Motorcraft ignition switch on the way. I have enough of these older rigs that I should have a spare on hand, anyway.

 

[david85]

There is a main engine harness connector at the inner fender on the passenger side of the engine bay. These connectors are not sealed, and prone to corrosion after so many decades. I ended up bypassing mine. A dead giveaway is to clean off the connector and look for signs of melting on the plastic or the wire insulation. The wires for the glow plug power are also particularly prone to this problem.

 

[nelstomlinson]

That engine harness connector melted down before I ever bought the truck, and was already replaced with wads of butt splices when I got it. I replaced the butt splices with a couple of connectors while I had it out for the head gasket. I have the glow plug wires separated out in their own connectors, I figured they were the main source of heat.

 

[Rdnck84_03]

I don't know if 89 has the same thing or not but for a while I was having issues with my 83 where you would be driving and it just seemed like you shut the key off. Everything inside the truck was dead.

Every time it happened I would pop the hood and start looking over the wires in the area of the solenoid, never finding anything that looked bad. But would always have power back after moving wires around over there.

After several rounds of this I finally found a large probably 8ga yellow wire with a single male/female spade in a gray connector over in the solenoid area that was hot around the connection. When i pulled it apart it was all corroded and burnt. It is the wire that feeds all the power into the cab.

After cutting the connectors of and soldering it together haven't had any more problems with it, that was 4-5 months ago.

James

 

[nelstomlinson]

My EVTM for the '89s arrived in the mail yesterday. I'm planning to look for the source of power in that, then try to find it on the truck. Odds are good something is corroded in there.

 

[Cubey]

The Motorcraft ignition switch is $70 for the '89, would be $20 for the '94 ambulance. Oh, well.

A universal one is $10-30 just avoid Dorman/Napa one. The one I got in an emergency for my bug has a weak return spring so it likes to leave the starter spinning when I let go of the key. I got a Standard (SMP) one from O'Reilly that's definitely differently made, it has a single sided key, not double sided like Dorman/Napa.

 

[Jesus Freak]

Maximum Overdrive or Christine.....be careful.

 

[MtnHaul]

Maximum Overdrive or Christine.....be careful.

Maybe Herbie got tired of driving an import and went American.