1993 F-150 6 cyl

1. The starter went completely dead, then the truck starts fine on the next try.

2. Driving along fine, then the engine dies. Starter was dead at first, then after a couple tries, it starts up fine

3. volt meter on dash was showing ok voltage, but needle was vibrating back and forth

4. the battery checks fine

5. for now, the volt meter is still and truck is ok, (for now)

Questions:
alternator shorting out?
voltage regulator going?
fuse related? (I seated all the fuses and it's behaved so far, but...)
thanks!
Stuart Horton

 

Had to have my Expy towed to ford last Monday. Turn the ignition switch and nothing. Power to everything, just nothing to the starter. I thought it was the ignition switch and so did the Ford Tech. Long story short, it was the portion of the switch in the lower part of the steering column that was out of adjustment.
Might check it out. The same thing happened to me many years ago on an 82 F150 I had.

Good Luck

 

Stuart,

I have seen that (those?) types of symptoms twice and both times it was a loose wire on the battery cable. The battery cable that goes to the side of the block was loose at the block. They seemed tight when I pulled on the battery cable, but when I put a wrench on them it was clear that the bolt had backed out 4-5 turns. In your case it might be worth a try to remove the cable, clean the side of the block, and retighten. An intermittent contact would case your car to run fine - then die and also cause the random problems with starting. It could also cause the volt meter to jump back and forth.

Both of the cases I saw were on cars that were more than 5 years old. I suppose it just takes time for the mounting bolt to loosen up.

Let us know if this fixes your problem. Good luck.