Hello. I have a 98 Ranger 3.0. Just yesterday, the electrical system seems to have shorted out, so I'm looking for some guidance. I'd like to see if there's something I can do before I pay a tow truck to take it to the garage.


First off, it's not acting like just a bad battery (which is only a few months old). For a while I would turn the ignition, and nothing would happen for 10-20 seconds. Then the dash lights would come on, but it wouldn't turn over. I was finally able to start it once and drive it home, but this morning, I"m having the same problem. It won't start even with jumper cables. It's clear that it lost power altogether at some point because all of the presets on the radio were erased. It's the first time something like this has happened on this truck, and it happened suddenly.


Anyway, that's why I think it's a short, or something jiggled loose. There's electricity getting to it, although delayed, but the engine doesn't even crank. Any ideas?


Thanks!

 

Welcome to the forum

Remove and clean BOTH battery cables
Follow each cable and make sure that end is clean

Test battery voltage
12.8volts is a new battery
12.5volts is a 3 year old battery
12.3volts is a 5/6 year old battery

12.2volt or less is a drained or failing battery, check alternator

And just a heads up, NEW used to mean "tested and it works", not any more, NEW now means "YOU TEST IT, and we well replace it if it doesn't work"
So "new battery", or new anything else, means squat, lol

If automatic try starting in Neutral, you could have a loose shifter and its not going all the way into PARK on the transmissions electric switch

Does turning the key "feel" OK, no looseness or hard to turn sometimes, the ignition switch(under steering column above brake pedal) is what powers up the Cab fuse box and all the cab electrics, also sends 12volts to starter motor when key is turned to START
These rarely fail, but thats not never fail

Its not a "short", a short is when 12volts(battery positive) goes directly to battery negative(ground) and there will be SMOKE, lots of it, lol, and burnt wires, which STINK, so you can't miss a short
You have a poor connection somewhere, and that always starts at the battery cables, source of all the voltage when engine is off

 

Hi Ron;

Thank you so much for all of this valuable insight. I know next to nothing about electrical, so this series of steps will be easy for me to follow.

A few months ago I found the 1998 Ranger with only 53,000 miles, and so I snatched it up. It runs great overall, but has a few little kinks like the aforementioned electrical problem.

Thanks again, and happy holidays.

Geron

 

I have a 98 4x4 Ranger splash. my G.E.M. Module went haywire on me. I had a similar problem. My interior lights would stay on sometimes and every couple days I would be greeted by a no start, as somehow the battery magically drained. Turns out the battery had a bad chassis ground. Bad connection This caused the GEM to freak out . i found a replacement GEM and reestablished a good ground connection. no more dead batteries.