General Technical & Electrical General technical and electrical discussion for the Ford Ranger that does not fit in any other sub-forum.

Ground issue?

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Old 12-08-2008
RangerSkippyRoo's Avatar
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Ground issue?

Just like it says.

Heres the details.

Battery is at full charge (I put it on a charger, even tried a diff charger to see if it wasnt something there everything shows a full charge.

When I start my truck, it will click fast, then turn over slowly and start. Sometimes it wont do this and it will start normally.

Driving down the road, the radio with just shut completely off, no power, will do this for a good 5 (or more) seconds then pop back up.

heater/ac fan will decide that it doesnt want to turn on for a while, radio works at this point.

When the truck is off, headlights seem dim when I start headlights get up to normal brightness again.

I know this is is going to be a ground issue, but there are several grounds and I want to know if anyone ahs any idea what would be a common ground point that the radio and fan controls use. This is driving me nuts. I dun have alot of cash currently, holidays and all =)

Any suggestions?
 
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Old 12-08-2008
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Did you check the battery-chassis ground? That is where I would start, then of course check all connections on the A/C compressor, fuse box, ECU, etc.
 
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Old 12-08-2008
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Do a thorough visual inspection.

Clean the battery terminals.
Check all the battery cable connections, to the alt, to the fusebox, to the body ground, to the engine ground, etc.

Since it is intermittent, it could easily be a loose connection or a bad battery cable.

Do you have a volt/ohm meter?
 
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Old 12-08-2008
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Are you positive the battery is good? My truck was doing the exact same thing, and it would be random. I took it to autozone and had them test it, it was fine without a load on it but when it had a load it dropped to 9volts! I got a new battery and now its perfect.
 
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Old 12-09-2008
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I've had funny experiences with bad batteries acting differently under differing loads. As previously suggested, before spending a lot of time searching out for poor grounds, I'd pull the battery first and have it tested under a "load." Do the easy stuff first. Then if the battery is good, start searching out for other problems.
 
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