Mystique - starter cranks, no other electrical working

I'm looking for some advise on where to start troubleshooting.

I was pulling out of my driveway this morning, and my '96 Mystique V-6 w/AT died when I put it in reverse. Very odd. I put it in Park, and tried restarting. It cranked, but no go. All my other electrical was nonfunctional - no radio, antenna stuck in up position, electric door locks not working. I grabbed my multimeter and got 12.05 V on the battery. I put the charger on it and set it for 100 amp start. The starter cranked a little faster, but no start.

The battery was new in Dec 2005, but it did go dead on me last month when I left the car undisturbed for 3 weeks. It has been reading about 13.2 V since I trickle charged it. Fuel pump was changed out at 65,000 miles (it has 104,000 on it now).

Since I can't start the Mystique up, I can't even put it in neutral to push it out of the driveway. It is trapping 2 vehicles in my garage. I had to use my kid's T-bird to get to work this morning. I was in a bit of a hurry to get to work, so my troubleshooting was pretty minimal so far. Where should I start - fuse box maybe?

start pulling and checking fuses and looking around for loose grounds generally those two are good places to start for an electrical problem.

I looked at it during my lunch hour, and didn't see any blown fuses. The instrument panel lights do come on, but nothing else electrical. Looking at the main power supply fuse (80A), it looks okay across the top. Pulled the #14 fuel pump fuse- OK. Pulled the ignition switch relay #10 - I dunno how you tell if that's good. I also checked the fuel pump shutoff switch (longshot, I know). I'll start digging into the Chiltons wiring diagrams to see if there are any fusible links.

Checked the 175A megafuse. I hope there is a special place in hell for the engineer who put that there. I didn't remove it, just popped the lid (actually, broke it and had to tiewrap it back on afterwards) and checked continuity in place. Can't find any other fuses out.

Did the screwdriver trick on the Auto tranny to get it out of park, so at least its out of the driveway now.

Test battery and alternator.

in M&M howto.
http://www.contour.org/ceg-vb/showthread.php?t=3535

Tony - after charging all day, battery was 13.6V. It was 12.05V this morning.

The alternator test requires the engine to be running, eh?

I did a few other things. Cleaned the battery terminals, even tho they were spotless to begin with. I also checked resistance in the ignition block, which I had to remove to get at the megafuse. Resistance was within the Chilton manual specs. I checked fuse continuity on the main 80 A power fuse, but since it seems to be bolted in, I just touched probes on the bolts. The owner's manual seems to want only a qualified mechanic to work on the big 3 maxifuses. Maybe I'm checking these wrong, but they look OK through the clear plastic covers.

You can't go by voltage read off a battery that has just come off charge, the surface charge will fool you. It's not 13.2 volts. A known brand new battery is only about 12.8 volts. Once they drop below like 12.35 or so can start giving trouble. As soon as you quit charging let it sit for a while to stabilize. I use overnight, check next day and you see the true volts or close. Have terminals disconnected while doing all this sitting. Sounds like the true volts or 12.05 is showing this battery's age. May not be your major problem, but certainly not helping.

Can't help much on the not starting problem, but you can move the shifter out of Park with no power if you use a screwdriver or similar implement into the small hole on the passenger side of the console at the base of the shifter - you use it to manually move the plastic locking piece that the solenoid normally moves. Popping the shift plate loose (don't need to remove, just pop up so you can see underneath) makes it easier to see what you're doing if you've not done it before.

Spikedog said:

Did the screwdriver trick on the Auto tranny to get it out of park, so at least its out of the driveway now.

Click to expand...

Got er done, Linkman. I wish this trick was available on my '06 Explorer, or I might not have had to have it towed last year.

I might drag the battery in for a stress test at one of the stores. I'll have to take it out anyway to check some of the red wires that go underneath the battery tray on the way to the 80 amp main power fuse. Like I mentioned, it went completely dead on me last month when the car sat for 3 weeks - voltage went down to 4.0V then. I checked the electrolyte levels - they were OK - then charged it back up. I figured either the battery was going bad or there was a small power drain. The battery is a Duralast, new in Dec. 2005.

Took the battery out, and found the culprit - fried wires from the positive terminal to the PDB.



Just moving the wires to start working on them broke 2 of them.



I broke out the electrical tools and butt-spliced some new wire in.



Dropped the battery back in, tried the ignition, and it fired right up. No bad fuses, not even a CEL. Took the battery back out, wrapped it all up in about 1/2 roll of electrical tape, and reset the clock and radio presets.

I'm not sure if battery acid or just rubbing caused the short. The battery stays pretty clean, so I'd lean towards the rub theory. Thanks for all the replies and help - you guys are great. Big thanks to ProjectSHO89 on the FTE site - exactly right.

It wasn't just luck that guided that suggestion...

http://www.contour.org/ceg-vb/showthread.php?t=30238&highlight=red+wire

Glad it turned out!

Geez, your wires look like the insulation just FELL off, Steve. I noticed the old wires had about 1/2 the thickness of insulation as my replacement wiring did. Pretty sleazy. I kinda wonder why Ford went with 2 wires on this circuit when 1 would do the job? Maybe needed the flexibility of thinner wire for the harness?