1985 302 efi wiring

[woody1333]

85 f150 5.0 efi AOD. About 200,000 miles total, and about 70,000 on rebuilt motor we installed several years ago. My dad bough this truck new and kept it until he could no longer drive. He gave the truck to another older man who kept it until he passed away. Well, after quite some time of searching, I found it, and bought it to fix up for my daughter. The truck has been sitting for about a year.
Currently there are a couple issues I need advice on.
1. Saturday, it seemed to be running fine. I made a left turn and it completely died. At first it would crank but not start. I finally noticed the fuel pump was not making any noise whatsoever. Tried new relay with no result. Then all of the sudden, the truck would crank at all. No lights, etc. It is like there is a dead short somewhere, which leads to the other issue (for now at least);
2. The wiring under the hood seems to be brittle as hell. Insulation on some of the wiring is just falling off. Noticed especially at what I think are a bank of relays right behind the battery. Not sure.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[O'Rattlecan]

How does the main ground wire look from the battery to the frame? My old truck had a pretty terrible connection that I had to clean up. I agree with you, it does sound like a short at some point.

A way to test your starter to see if it's working is to connect the 2 solenoid points for the starter on the passenger fender under the hood. I use a screw driver to connect them together. Sometimes that solenoid fails and that's a way to bypass it. If it starts, you know you have a bad solenoid. If it doesn't, keep moving down the line and make sure everything has power.

Ryan

 

[woody1333]

Thanks for the input. Problem turned out to be a bad ignition switch. It had some sort of dead short.

What about the brittle wire insulation issue? Any ideas other than a complete harness replacement?