Well, I survived Hurricane Dennis, only to find my battery dead on my truck! Apparently, I left the key turned to ignition and didn't realize it. Just before my truck died completely, it was making a weird clicking sort of noise that was coming from somewhere under the truck. I borrowed a battery charger from a friend and immediately after connecting it, my lights come on. I check the light switch and it is off and that same weird sound is back, only it comes on a minute then shuts off along with the headlights. I don't understand it. I can't disengage the damn transmission to back it out and jump it off my other truck because the battery is dead. Any ideas of what is making that weird sound or how to get my truck out of the garage to jump it? BTW, why in the world would Ford design a vehicle that will not allow you to disengage the transmission if the car is dead?

 

you should be able to disengage it, turn the key to on and it should unlock the shifter, put it in N and push!

and once i had a strage problem with the headlights, where they would stay on for no reason. never figured out why, but it never happeend again

 

Even with the key in the ignition and turned on and the brake pedal pressed, the shifter will not move from park. I am at a loss! My headlights will not stay off and therefore any charge coming from the charger is going to power those instead of cherging the battery.

 

page 154 of the owners manual tells how to do this. It's kind of long, and I don't know which shift setup you have. If you don't have the manual, handy, post back
Chris

 

For others, on the column shift, under the houseing that the shifter sticks out of, there is a little rubber plug. Pop it out, using a small flathead screwdriver. inside there is a override button you push with the screwdriver.

On the floor shift there you actually have to pry up the cover around the shifter, using a small screwdriver from the back. picture helps.
with the cover up, you can get at the white button down below the neutral position.

This is assuming a completely dead battery. If it's just a blown fuse on the brake light, changing that would fix it.
Good luck.
Chris

 

Thanks for the reply's! I finally got the thing to let me out of park. I backed it out, popped the hood, and started to connect some jumper cables. Then, problem #2! I was trying to find a place to connect the negative cable instead of the battery like the manual states. I found a spot, go to connect it, and it starts arcing bad. Hmmmm. I then say screw it and connect to the negative terminal. About three seconds later, I start to smell something and think "This ain't good"! I look over and my cable leading from the positive terminal, the one with the fuse housing, is smoking! I quickly try and remove the cables from both batteries and they are so hot they start melting the rubber handles!!! Needless to say, I guess it is tow truck time and off to the dealer!

 

How did you hook the cables up??? Sounds like you had them backwards!!

 

Cables were correct. I have jumped cars dozens of times and this was no different, except the result. Maybe something to do with my battery? Gonna pull it tomorrow and take it to the store to have them check it to see if it is bad. I couldn't beleve how hot it got those jumper cables. The damn handles were so hot I had to yank it off by the cable. Hopefully noting in my wiring/ electronics got fried!!!!!