Sport Trac

[violin]

2005 Sport trac. Will not start sometimes. No crank but everything else in the vehicle is fine. Replaced starter,Replaced 12V positive wire to starter. load tested battery. Also get strange symptons on the instrument cluster sometimes. The tach and speedometer lay down at zero and quiver, sometimes even after the engine is turned off. When the no-start thing occurrs, there is a repetative chattering sound coming from under the dash, even after the key is removed. Can go a week sometimes without any of these symptons.

When it wont start, jump starting from another running vehicle will make it start. (The battery is not dead). I'm thinking that the 13-14 volts gives the car something that the straight 12-13 volts wont.
Anyone have any ideas? I dont want to go to the dealer yet because I know they will charge big bucks for this.

 

[08v6]

When You Do get it To Start, How Is It Driving And Shifting?

 

[violin]

Shifting is fine. It idles just a little rough,though, hardly notice it most of the time, but occassionally it "chugs' like it's going to stall, but only for an instant then goes back to relatively normal idling. The rough idle is most noticed when you start the car cold.

 

[bdmaash]

you have a loose connection most likely.
check the main power wires on the battery and where they go.
most likely the problem will be at the battery - that is if you boost from battery terminals to battery terminals.
if you connect the ground to the motor, then look at the grounding points on the motor too.
other places to look are the fusebox power feeds.

 

[violin]

That was my first impression as well. The whole affair began with the not starting issue.
I cleaned the battery terminals well, checked all connections related to the starter and vehicle ground. Replaced the starter relay also. No difference. The guage stuff came a month later. I'm hoping for a loose connection but everything under the hood seems OK. I wonder if there is some type of "electronic module" that might be acting up, or maybe the key switch assembly.

 

[600remguy]

The noise behind the dash is the cluster, for lack of betters words, relighting itself. It is getting momentary power loss. You'll get the same noise if you pull the fuse.

Below is what I wrote when I found my fuel gauge problem:

(I had exactly the same problem. Turns out it was a bad connection in the, what I call, chassis to dashboard connector which, in my '04 Sport Trac, is located about 7 inches on an angle behind the fuse panel. About 70 wires coming and going. May be worth a try. My connector was sorta chewed up from someone trying to do something with it with maybe a large screwdriver or something. )

Check this plug. You can see it and somewhat get at it from underneath. It is square and gray in a black plastic bracket. Mine is always loose in the bracket for some reason which might be the root of my problem. Have to shake it periodically for my gauge to come back to life. Other than that, check all your grounds, inside AND out. Sounds like you get no signal from the key to the starter.

Good luck