I have a 88 5.8 liter Bronco with a new starter, alternater, and battery. When the truck is cold it cranks great. After 5-10 minutes of driving, if I turn the vehicle off, it sounds as if the battery is almost dead (sometimes to the point it will not crank). If I let it sit for 5-10 minutes, it cranks back up with no trouble. Any Ideas...
Drain on Battery
- Thread starter Bronco88
- Start date
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Seabronc
New member
Possibly your grounding, or connections to the starter. Try cleaning all the connections from the battery posts to the starter on the (+) side and the grounding connections from the battery to the engine and frame. Take them off, clean the lugs with some sand paper, plus clean off the point of contact to the frame and engine.
Good luck,
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Good luck,
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madmax
Member
next time it wont crank or seems weak try running your rear window up and down, if theres a connection probelm to the battery, it should only creep. also ive heard several times of people having trouble with their starter getting overheated causing it to have trouble cranking.
I was at Lowe's today and it left me stranded. Someone stoppped and jumped started the truck. He said the truck was vapor locking. I got home and it would not crank. I went to Advance Auto to check battery - battery was good but would not crank. One employee advised the ingition module was bad, but another disagreed and advised this year truck had problems vapor locking. Two people today talked about vapor locking, what do you think.
Seabronc
New member
I've never heard of vapor locking preventing the starter from working.
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madmax
Member
Vapor locking won't cause it to not crank only to not get fuel (at least thats my understanding of it), however if you are having vapor locking issues you should consider switching to a colder thermostat, the 195 that ford puts in there is excessively hot, they use that mainly to keep emissions down. I use a 170 thermostat in the summer and a 180 in the winter and I use a coolant additive that makes it exchange heat more efficiently.
This is really sounding more like a problem delivering the electric power to the starter, you might want to try removing the wire to the starter and cleaning it with a wire brush on a dremil or electric drill and reconnecting the wire, also it might not hurt to take the starter off and clean where it contacts the bell housing. Either way it sounds like the starter is getting a fraction of the power that it should when things are hot, Also it's possible that the wires appear to be fine but are corroded inside the casing, saltwater from the winter roads can get inside a small nick in the rubber casing and really destroy the wires due to the electric current. If the wires are badly corroded inside the casing they could work fine when they are cold but once they heat up things expand and power doesn't flow as well, unfortunately the only way to check something like that is to replace the wire. Still, the wire doesn't cost much.
Also it could still be an overheating starter, with another tuck hooked up to your electrical system the starter can draw more amperage giving it more torque. You are using the correct battery for your truck right?
