The ring terminal on my positive side starter cable broke the other day. I have a new terminal end jammed on there as best I can without taking the harness out. New harness is a dealer only item at $120! Crazy I say, so I'm looking at other options.

My '00 harness has the positive and negitive wrapped together. Sounds like this is the only year to have them combined. This has me thinking I can pull the positive harness out of the wrap and just make a new one.

Looks like the weather is gonna be nice this coming weekend, so I want to get this fixed before my half-assed fix quits on me. Thought I'd ask before I start tearing the harness apart... does anyone know if the positive cable is a straight shot from the battery to the starter?

 

I went to a starter shop and had a new positive cable made with an eyelet on one end and a bare end at the other. I new battery connector that squeezes the end was used. Cost less than $50.00. That was about a year and some ago. Last week the eyelet on the starter let go. I split the wire and bolted it down till I get a new eyelet. That reminds me; I need to get this fixed.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

So it is a straight shot from the battery to the starter? I can get a cable with the ring on one end and post clamp on the other already made from just about any auto parts place. I think it was around $20 for a good 3-4 foot 2ga.

 

I'll quote you for a new cable, 2000 F150 eng? pm me your vin number. maybe I can save you a few bucks.

Ed

 

I had one made but basically that is it. You need a battery post clamp the will accept two cables. One goes straight to the starter and the other has the fusible links that go to the stater motor relay on the firewall.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

this reminds me when I broke the "harness" for my fuel filter, 64$ for that piece of junk. I THINK NOT! couple good run arounds with some duct tape and it was good-2-go

 

This after noon I picked up a new cable. $20.00 for a 6 foot length with a eyelet on one end. I was too lazy to measure and I wanted it to be long enough......

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

If all you need is the new eyelet just get you some solder and a small propane torch. Pretty simple, clean the cable wipe the flux on it, heat the eyelet and melt the solder into it. then slip it on the cable while solder is still hot and your done. I have done this to many times to remeber and all it cost is the eye. But then again I have the solder,flux and torch already......Another trick is to crimp the eye with a center punch in a couple spots, works to.....

 

That's all I did - I used the sweating method fastening cables in those copper connectors ~ clamped in a smooth jaw steel vice. - Did my amp cables and wiring the same way. Good solid connection. Yea it is nice having all that plumbing sh^t on hand

 

The corrosion wicked a few inches up the wire. I didn't have enough wire left to solder a new eye to. New cable was easier. Besides I was feeling lazy.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

Corrosion is a good ways up the wire on mine too, so I want to replace out the wire. Found a 4' pre-made wire at AutoZone for $10. I'll pull apart the harness this weekend and replace the section between the battery and starter tonight.

 

So after fiddle-farting around with the old harness trying to make it work, I finally gave up and bought a new one. By the time I got the new terminal ring on good the old harness was too tight to fit on right ( harness ended up too close to the headers).

I also ended up breaking the relay switch on the fender wall taking the harness on and off so many times. Cross threaded on and broke the stud right off trying to take the nut off. I finally got everything back together with the new harness and relay switch.

My question is what does that switch do? I've had a couple screwy things happen since I hooked everything back up that has me wondering. Does it matter which wires I hook up to the 2 studs on that switch? It seems like the lower one has power all the time. The couple times I checked the top stud it wasn't hot, so I'm not exactly sure what that is for.

I had my electric fan leads attached to the top stud, and found that both fuses were melted. There was a fair amount of corrosion in both fuse holders, so it might just be a coincidence and the issue was the corrosion. When I rewired in new fuse holders I attached the leads to that top stud again. That's when I noticed that that stud didn't light up my test light. Fans never started up, so I moved the leads to the bottom stud and everything is working fine with them now.

This morning, the truck wouldn't start. Starter was spinning away. Seemed like no spark, cause I didn't even get a sputter or anything. Then all a sudden it started right up and has several times now today.

Experience has taught me that when ever I mess with something I know nothing about, screwy things start happening. So I gotta go back to that switch. There are the two leads right from the battary that go to both the studs on the switch that are pretty obvious how they go. There were a couple leads coming from somewhere towards the engine... I need to trace those down tonight, but I'm guessing they are ignition related some how. Right now I have both of those on the bottom stud on the switch. I think that is how they were on the old switch, but am not certain. Could I have messed those up somehow, and could that be why she didn't want to start this morning?

 

Just so we are clear. The Starter Motor Relay Switch on the firewall has 3 terminals. Two large ones, top and bottom, and 1 small one, to the left of the two large ones.

The left terminal has 1 wire and it it Hot in Start. It comes from the Ignition Stitch and energizes the Starter Motor Relay Switch

The bottom large terminal has 3 wires. It is hot all the time. One Wire from the Battery, has fusible links. One Wire from the alternator, 12v positive to recharge Battery and power circuits. And one Wire that goes to the Power Distribution Box in the engine compartment to provide 12v for all the other circuits.

The top large terminal has 1 wire of a smaller gauge that the bottom wires . It is Hot in when the Switch is activated. It runs to the starter Solenoid.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

Thanks JMC! That will help me better understand what's going on there.

 

Hey JMC - My big fat RED wire got f'ed up - Didn't know it was until yesterday.

The date on my battery says "7-2006" - I was going to take it back yesterday and get a new one . It was going dead every couple days. It's been doing this for awhile.

Then I charged it up in the morning - Pulled the truck out of the shop and power washed it. While I was washing it - The Damn truck started cranking over

All right - WTF is going here

Wires looked good ? Huh ? Got underneath it / moved the harness around a bit w/the big red wire and - Well , U know how it makes that loop under the starter and comes back and connects ? That entire harness has that harness wrap protecting it - The wrap/harness was filled with water - It just poured out of there when I moved it ..

Heres the loop that was full of water -