4 below here and the lousy 3 year battery that Ford sold me a couple years ago turned over twice and then clicked. After hooking up jumper cables, engine (4.0 V6) turned over great but would not start or even try to start. Let it sit a couple different times and again it would turn over great but still would not start. Any ideas? Tomorrow it will be in the upper 30's so it will be interesting to see if it starts with warmer temps. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

Try some ether, "quick start", starting fluid

Gasoline can't be ignited by a spark, only gasoline VAPOR can, and you need 30% gasoline vapor in a cylinder for it to ignite and vaporize the rest of the gasoline in the cylinder.
Ether has a much lower vapor temp so really helps for cold gasoline start ups, once a cylinder fires, at 1,000+degF, new incoming gasoline will vaporize easier.

Cold has a quadruple whammy for startup
one is the AMPs needed by the starter to crank the cold engine is higher,
two is the cold battery can't release AMPs as fast as warmer battery
three is the voltage at the coil drops to 9volts when cranking so spark is weaker
four is the lower vapor level of gasoline at colder temps

A block heater can help, it does two things, starter uses less AMPs, so stronger spark, and gasoline vapor is higher in warmer engine.

 

Thanks so much for answering! Not sure where to spray starting fluid without taking something apart? Thanks!

 

Power brake booster vacuum hose is usually easy to access, spray some into the hose and put hose back on booster, engine will suck it in when you crank it

Or PCV valve's hose if its easier

 

Thanks again for responding and guess someone will have to show me where those things are. I'm not too familiar with what things are under the hood; not like the OLD days back in the late 60's when I was a teenager where points, plugs, set the timing and dwell plus adjust the carb and you were good to go. Haven't kept up since.

 

I think I know which hose you are talking about that goes from booster to engine but I think I will try taking apart where the air filter is, spraying some fluid, hooking back up and then try starting.

 

You can do that but not all the time, the ether will cause issues with MAF sensor over time, doesn't hurt it, you just need to clean it more often.

Look on the large Air Tube that runs from the air filter box to the upper intake on the engine.

There should be a Breather hose attached, no clamp just a hose that runs to either the oil filler tube on the valve cover, or to the Valve cover
Pull off that hose and spray ether into the large Air Tube, so same as doing air cleaner but by-passes MAF sensor

 

Thanks Ron for answering. Got it running before I saw your post by spraying in via the aircleaner after unclipping; it idled up and down for several minutes before it returned to a normal, even idle. Went to Ford to get a new battery because it was a 3 year replaceable so didn't cost me a dime. Was talking to the parts guy and he suggested that if the truck has sat awhile it might lose the prime in the line so he suggested that the next time it does not start to shut the key off and then turn to the on position without trying to start, listen for the fuel pump for a couple seconds, turn key off and then turn back on to attempt starting. The next day it was +21 when I went to drive and with the new battery it fired right up just like it was summer. Thanks for your responses and will wait until this happens again to try the parts guy trick. He told me they were notorious for doing what he described and said if that trick did not work then there might be other issues that would need service department to handle.