Water pump bearing went out threw water all over under the hood. Fixed that problem, but now the truck wont crank over. The dash lights up like normal, everything seems to be normal, but no crank.

I don't think I can here the fuel pump kick on.

I did some electrical testing in the fuse box. Tested f12 f32 f34, all get power. I jiggled the PCM relay and removed and inspected it. F32 and f34 are fed from it, I believe, so it seems good.

I removed the three PCM connectors and they all looked dry and clean. There was a couple other multi-wire plugs in that area I pulled apart and inspected, all look good.

Any suggestions how to continue from here?

Thanks!

ETA: 2006 expedition Eddie Bauer

 

Swapped out the starter for a another known good used one with 1/10th the miles. The old one has had a few failures to engage in the last couple months anyway, so figured what the heck.

No dice.

Not sure what to check now, and I'm giving up for the night.

The battery seems to be draining very quickly. I have tried another battery with nothing changing, so I don't think that it's the battery itself causing this issue.

I have a feeling this antifreeze all over is going to cause me to have to get rid of this truck, or face chasing even more electrical gremlins now than it already had.

 

Reading through more threads here, I was reminded by one that there was some coolant in the intake, under the filter. Must have sucked it in where the plenum connects because the plenum itself was dry. The filter was damp, but not really that wet. I changed it out anyway because it was pretty dirty. Perhaps I've hydro-locked the engine? I shut it down with the key when I parked it to change the water pump, everything seemed fine at the time....


.... I just went out with a helper to turn the key while I listened closely for the starter solenoid. Seems to be working, so possibly I have a hydro-locked motor. Will check to see if engine turns manually tomorrow and if not I guess pull the plugs. Wells probably need coolant cleaned out of them anyway.

 

Remove the serpentine belt and see if it will crank. You could have a frozen pulley.

 

... Then, if it still doesn't crank, put a breaker bar with the right sized socket on the crank bolt and try turning the crank by hand. That will tell you if the problem is internal.

 

It's cold out, and I'm losing patience with this.

I skipped removing the belt and checking pulleys and went straight to the harmonic balancer bolt with a long ratchet. It turned quite easily. Good news, but WTF.

Maybe I'm not hearing the starter try to engage. There are so many clicks and ding dongs along with the cd changer going weeeer weer weerrgg werrr every time you turn the key, it's kind of hard to tell what the heck is what. I'll get a helper out there this evening and go over it again. I'm going to drop off the old starter at the part store to have it checked.

Any thoughts on the battery draining? I don't have a good charger. Just a tender that will charge it after quite a long time. The truck drained the battery again last night, with the tender attached. Battery getting charged up again inside now and will now probably need to be load tested.

 

Old starter made some noise on the tester, but it sounded really bad.

I'm going to take the starter I put in, back out and if I have enough battery I'll test it, but will likely bring it into Napa to test also.

 

Sounds like you need to get your battery tested too.

 

OK...

The J/Y starter is good. I had napa test it, they said it didn't work. I brought it back home and tapped it a few times and tried it again and it worked. Sounds a lot better than the old one which is now disassembled on my bench.

Put the starter in, put the fully charged battery in, and same thing, just clicks.

I found what was probably the battery drain, the rear window wiper was stuck in the middle.

So, this evening when I get back to it I'll be looking over the fuse panel again. I went through the list in the manual and made note of any fuses or relays that have anything about the starter/pcm circuits.

My gut tells me it's something under the hood that's being affected by the coolant all over the place though...

 

Well, my gut was somewhat correct. It was something under the hood.


Turns out I created the no start issue when reinstalling the fan shroud. I must have got caught up on the starter signal wire while installing the fan shroud and broke the wire up inside the connector. Passed visual test, and even took apart the connector for a cleaning and spray of electrical cleaner didn't notice it.

I'm not sure why that wire runs up to the front of engine bay like that, and then just has a connector in the middle of it, other than maybe it's simply for test purposes; because if you hook a jumper from the battery to the lower side of it, the starter turns whether the key is on or not. Kind of handy if you know about it ahead of time for testing the starter. Also, if your starter circuit upstream of that connector quits working for some reason (relays, fuses, ignition switch, wiring, circuit boards, etc.), you should be able to start your truck with the key in the "on" position and jumping it here. I say should because I didn't actually try this specifically.

Anyway, just wanted to finish the thread out with the solution, lol. Thanks for the help!

 

Glad you saved it

and thanks for circling back and letting us know!