Ford 1999 F-150 XLT 4.8L King Cab

Here are the symptoms:
1. Quite a while back, my battery light would flash on for a split second. I didn't pay it any attention, as I figured it was an electrical or computer glitch. This happened every once in a while.

2. Starting back even before that, my electric door locks quit working, pretty much (this has been over the past couple years - I thought it was unrelated)

3. Starting maybe a year or two ago, I have the "phantom wipers" situation where the wipers will just come on out of the blue, and might swing once, or might just decide to stay on for a while.

4. During the past couple of weeks, I occasionally have smelled what smelled like a belt burning on a vaccum cleaner (if you've smelled it once, you know what I mean) comming out of the passenger side of under the hood - I think that's where it was comming from. This hasn't been but a couple of times.

5. For the past few days, the battery light has stayed on constantly.

6. Starting last night, I saw a DEFINITE decrease in the battery. It showed the battery juice dropping right before my eyes. But I was able to get home, and roll up the electric windows.

7. This morning, it cranked and I got to work, but the battery started off at 1/4 of capacity, and ended at dead zero. I couldn't even roll my windows up when I got to work - I'm just glad that we have a parking garage at work.

8. Also, this morning, after I got out of the truck, I smelled what smelled like a burnt wire smell, possibly, from under my hood.

I've not yet taken the time to look under the hood for the problem, as initially I thought it just a glitch of some sort that was insignificant, and over the past couple of days, I've not had a chance to stop in order to look.

Does anyone have any suggestiosn/clues on this one? If I can get it to crank to go home, I might take it by an Advance Auto store where I purchased the last battery, and had it installed. I figure, if nothing else, they can at least diagnose the problem for me.

Thanks.

 

I'm sure a real expert will tell you I'm wrong, but I'm guessing it's a bad battery. The burning smell comes from the charging system getting overworked trying to keep everything alive.

 

Well, I wish it were the battery, but I can't help but be thinking it's either a wiring problem or a computer problem, maybe.

Nonetheless, if I find out that it's just the battery, I will (needless to say) be extremely happy! Especially considering I just bought this battery maybe 8 months ago. So, if that's the case, I should be able to get it replaced under warranty, no problem. Let's just hope the thing will crank at the end of the work day, so I can just drive strait over to Advance instead of first finding someone to jump off my truck.

 

You probably smoked your fusable link between the alternator's output and the battery. The fusable link is a short section of smaller gauge wire (e.g., if the output wire is 4 Ga., the link will probably be 8 Ga.) that will likely be located where the output wire from your alternator attaches to the hot side of the starter solenoid. You have an on-going electrical fault (possibly an intermittant short in your battery) that has led up to this condition. First step is to replace the link, but then you need to look for the fault.

 

Thanks for the advice. Do you think they'll carry that part at Advance Auto? I would think so, but just curious.

I'm hoping I can get my truck jumped off to at least get on the road to the Advance store, and go from there. I'll be sure to keep this in mind. And once I get the immediate problem fixed, see if I can figure out what in the world is causing it all.

 

Yes, Advance Auto handles fusable links.

 

This might sound like a silly idea, but have you checked your battery cables to / from the battery ?

They will feed to the starter solenoid and the starter itself.

If you had a bad connection, this would account for an overload, and popping of a fuseable link, or you might just have finally overloaded a frayed wire so far.

Just something else to check, when you stick your head under the hood, to check the 2 fusable links.

 

Well, I got it fixed - so far as I know. I went to Advance, they did their check, and it was the alternator. The battery was drained, but it was still in good shape. The alternator was pretty much dead/fried. I got the alternator replaced at a Firestone in the same parking lot. The head mechanic there recommended I get the Battery ground wire replaced by getting a replacement at a Ford dealership, but stated that it should be fine now, anyway. It all seemed to run fine afterwards, except I think I may have heard the alternator whining some - don't remember hearing that with the older one.

The alternator has a 2 year warranty, so I'm not too concerned about it. If it seems to have anything wrong in the next short while, I'll go back up there and see about getting it re-replaced or just buying one somewhere else and bringing it there to replace. But my guess is that it's just a different alternator, and also that it may have been working a little more at first. All checked out okay at the repair place. They also put on a new end cap for the Negative wire as it was in pretty bad shape.

I had some bad experience with that same Firestone probably at least 10 or 12 years ago, but this turned out to be a really good experience. The guys working there actually helped me push the truck from the Advance Auto store to their location, b/c my battery was being checked for the warranty and all inside Advance.

Anyway, all seems to be good now. Thanks for all the advice.

 

Okay, the alternator was replaced, but now I've got another possible issue.

About 1 or 2 weeks ago, I smelled a burning smell that came out from under the hood of my truck that smelled like maybe a belt on a vacuum cleaner going bad. If you've ever smelled that, you KNOW what that is. It did it a couple of times when I had gotten to work on a couple different occasions. Then, it didn't do it any more. I got the alternator replaced last night, and this morning, the smell is there again.

Any thoughts as to what that could be?

 

Not to sound like a broken record, but check those fusable links. They get hot and smell when over loaded. You may not have completely burned them out yet, but it sounds like you still have an intermittant shorting problem. I believe there are two links in parallel. You may have one burned out, which is causing your new alternator to work extra hard and overheating the remaining link. If you don't find your problem, you will be exercising the warranty on that new alternator. Other checks you can make while looking around under the hood are:

Turning on your fog lights (if equipped)
Turning on your high beams
Putting your heater fan on high
Cranking up your sound system (especially, if you have a high power after market system)
Turning on your windshield wipers
All of the above at the same time

Last thought - check the condition of your fan belt.

Good luck.

 

06 So Comfort,

Thanks for the advice. I'll hope to try and look at it tomorrow, and see what all I can find out, at least. My brother is more mechanically inclined than I, so hopefully I'll be able to get his assistance if he's not working.