Ford ranger 1999 electrical short or bad ground

[David Atkinson]

I am working on a 1999 ford ranger truck and i watched the ETCG video today about starter issues and i was getting just a click. and not every time. The truck would only start if you jumped it and hooked the negative cable from my Honda to a bolt holding the air compressor in place. The truck would start right up. I took the starter off and took it to autozone and had it bench tested and it failed. i bought a new one and I am getting a click but it did start once without a jump. I also had the guy at autozone go ahead and test the battery the night before also and there was some kind of short that kept his battery tester from giving a reading. he tried it 3 times and it would not give a reading/. The voltage to the starter was 12.3 What should I do next to see why it is starting when i hook it to another ground than the negative battery pole. The battery is giving 12.3 12.4 volts but i haven;t checked the CCA, it kept shorting out the tester.

Topic

[exceptionalchris]

when you took the battery to autozone, they where not able load test it? of check the cold cranking amps? the car starts fine only when jumped? sounds like it a bad battery.

[twiggy]

I am assuming that you are getting the starter to operate between jumping between negative terminal of the battery and the compressor bolt?

If that’s the case you likely have poor ground connection in the wiring or terminals between your battery negative post and the frame of your car. This can also cause your battery to fail to charge so if you buy a new battery, you need to address this wiring issue or your new battery will fail soon.

[David Atkinson]

so i should just find a new ground site on the frame? The battery cable is cut and grounded in an odd place right now. I wonder if i should just replace the whole cable??

[Bill]

I would buy a new cable and bolt it to a good clean spot on the engine block or cylinder head (NO paint). From what you have explained i think there is a bad ground there.

Did the guy at Autozone have the cables on the tester hooked up correctly?

[David Atkinson]

Yes he did. he hooked them up directly up to the negative and positive on the battery . he didn;t use the ground to the bolt on the air compressor. each time it shorted and wouldn;t give a reading from his tester

[Bill]

Yeah, but did he hook it up with the correct polarity? If he had it connected correctly then maybe his tester had a problem.

[David Atkinson]

Yes I think it was hooked up properly,

[Bill]

Anyway I would install a new cable anyway. I’m sure that’s part if not all your problem.

[David Atkinson]

Ok enough on that. Went and changed the ground to a better connection, substituted my battery from my car, same thing. fires up really good as long as the negative jumper cable is hooked up to the bolts on the air compressor. Will probably get new cable. on to other things

[David Atkinson]

Oh well, ???? something not right about the wiring on the 99 fore ranger. Owner wanted me to go ahead and check on getting another cable or check deeper to see what might be going on. I go to advance, and get a battery test, and the test runs but the battery fails, it only had 6 CCA I call the owner tell him and we buy a new battery. I had already checked all the grounds So buy a new battery $100 have already bought new starter $100.00 and after battery installed, it clicked once then started. The manger of Advance and I look at each other kind of whew. and then I cut it off and it started right up two more times. We think issue solved. I get home cut the truck off and click.. Nothing. click click click, so i hook it up to jumper cable on my car and hook the cable up to air compressor bolt again and boom fires right up. ???????????? New starter from failed bench test, now battery replaced . but also failed????? Not sure what next.

[Bill]

Take the ground cable off of the compressor and clean everything well and reinstall or move the cable as suggested before.

[David Atkinson]

thanks wysetech, it’s been done all grounds checked and changed. not sure what else could have been done before i started looking at it. Why would the direct ground the the air compressor work over the battery negative itself> What else could be shorting things out??

[Bill]

I have found really obscure ground connection problems on older fords. The compressor braket is aluminum if memory serves me. The braket sometimes gets corroded and will not make contact to the engine block. Since the starter is bolted to the block or aluminum bell housing there is a poor ground connection back to the battery.

I have also seen where the cable is not making a good connection to the eyelet on the cable.

Actually Ford had so much problem with this they run the negative cable directly to a stud/bolt that fastens the starter to the bell housing in newer vehicles.

If you keep doing this long enough you will be bald like me….LoL

[David Atkinson]

I know, it can seem like self imposed torture sometimes. Someone else put another engine in the truck a while back and i don;t know everything he did but we’ll see what the owner will say . What else he wants to do. I wanted to move on to a couple of more issues

[scott37300]

What cables have you replaced already? Before replacing any parts you should have done some voltage drop tests to make sure all cables and grounds were good. I think Eric has a video on voltage drop, otherwise there are some on youtube. Drop test all the cables from the battery to the starter, including ALL grounds from battery to frame to engine, etc. This would have been one of my first steps. This is where the load pro test leads can come in really handy. It puts a load on while you do a drop test. If there is a lot of corrosion you may still have 12.xx volts but once you apply a load that can change.

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