RangerNutt
Active Member
- Joined
- February 12, 2015
- Messages
- 77
- Reaction score
- 47
- City, State
- Mid-third I75
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 96 Ranger XLT
First help request here, all answers welcome.
Had a starting problem where turning the key to Start position failed to do anything. Leaving the key in Run position and jumping from B+ to the S terminal on the starter relay (fender-mounted) became a direct substitute for normal starting. (Roll starts also worked normally.)
But can't live with that. Keeping a vehicle up to snuff is important. Once you let it run down a little, everything slides. A bad attitude and dumping it then follow. To keep from going there, I fix.
The service manual I have is for a '97 so things may have changed in the following model year, but the schematic shows a very straightforward path from key switch to S terminal:
key switch > fuse 24 (inside) > anti-theft relay contacts > clutch switch > starter realy
Starting at the fuse, everything checked out all the way through the clutch switch. At the next stop (the final destination) however, no power.
So peeling back the insulation on the pink 329 Crank Enable Relay wire at the clutch switch, I soldered in an also-ran line from there to the S terminal. Truck now starts just as it has for nearly 20 years.
What's bugging me is this mysterious callout: Crank Enable Relay. Having done exhaustive searches through the manuals and online, the only references I find to it are at the connector pinouts. FWICT, there is no such thing as a "Crank Enable Relay."
Can it be that the nomenclature is trying to say 'Crank, enable (starter) relay'? Or does the mystery relay exist?
Having a length of wire or a harness connector go bad seems unusual, especially when they haven't been handled since leaving the factory (to my knowledge).
Anyways, DC current being much harder on switch contacts, I wanted to get some affirmation that my patch job is legit before waking up one morning to find the key or clutch switches fried.
Had a starting problem where turning the key to Start position failed to do anything. Leaving the key in Run position and jumping from B+ to the S terminal on the starter relay (fender-mounted) became a direct substitute for normal starting. (Roll starts also worked normally.)
But can't live with that. Keeping a vehicle up to snuff is important. Once you let it run down a little, everything slides. A bad attitude and dumping it then follow. To keep from going there, I fix.
The service manual I have is for a '97 so things may have changed in the following model year, but the schematic shows a very straightforward path from key switch to S terminal:
key switch > fuse 24 (inside) > anti-theft relay contacts > clutch switch > starter realy
Starting at the fuse, everything checked out all the way through the clutch switch. At the next stop (the final destination) however, no power.
So peeling back the insulation on the pink 329 Crank Enable Relay wire at the clutch switch, I soldered in an also-ran line from there to the S terminal. Truck now starts just as it has for nearly 20 years.
What's bugging me is this mysterious callout: Crank Enable Relay. Having done exhaustive searches through the manuals and online, the only references I find to it are at the connector pinouts. FWICT, there is no such thing as a "Crank Enable Relay."
Can it be that the nomenclature is trying to say 'Crank, enable (starter) relay'? Or does the mystery relay exist?
Having a length of wire or a harness connector go bad seems unusual, especially when they haven't been handled since leaving the factory (to my knowledge).
Anyways, DC current being much harder on switch contacts, I wanted to get some affirmation that my patch job is legit before waking up one morning to find the key or clutch switches fried.
