Hey guys. Let me first say, great forum you have here. I owned a GM for many years, and I acquired a 2002 4.2 F150 about a year ago. So I'm pretty new to Ford trucks.

Anyways, I've done some searching on this, and I've seen a couple threads that could be related, but I felt I should just start a new one because my has a couple variables that seem different.

First off, the problem doesn't happen consistently, It can happen multiple times on the same trip, or not happen for weeks at a time. What happens is when I'm driving, my dash lights all start to flicker very fast. This has happened at stop and go city driving or highway speeds. The flickering does not cause the truck to stop running nor does it seem to effect how it runs. Which is a bit rough, but thats another topic. While the lights flicker, the speedometer will slowly go to 0 and stay there. When this occurs, I can either let it stay like this, and it varies in time, but it will usually stop flickering, and all the gauges act like they reset and go back to where they should, ie the speedometer seems to read correct speed, voltage hits around 14, temp and oil pressure gauges appear to display correct info. However, I noticed, and it was by pure accident, that if while the gauges were flickering, and I click the trip gauge on the dash, the reset would usually happen as soon as I released the trip button.

Also, on a rare occasion, I'll put the key in the ignition and the dash lights will do the same thing. When this happens I can crank the engine, it starts for about 2 seconds, and then dies.

I'm not exactly certain where to start on this. I read the issue on the PCM and fuel pump relays, causing similar issues, but not exactly the same ones.

Sorry for the book, but I'm not in much of a position to take this thing into the dealer to chase an electrical gremlin, and have them experiment at my expense. So any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Do you have any history on the truck??? Sounds to me like you have a lose wire somewhere in the dash. Need to find if the dah was taken apart for any kind of work??

Otherwise gonna have to take apart the dash and look at the wires for the dash light circuts. good luck!