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Hi, I am trying to fire up a friend's Merc Colony Park wagon. I have an AC delco battery from a '69 buick wagon that was charged up. I hooked it up and I did get 12v between positive terminal and negative side engine (valve cover). When trting to crank nothing happened. I tried the lights and even those did not work Nothing electrical worked as if there was no battery. The wagon was running fine in good order when parked two years ago. I am not very knowledgable about Fords so I was wondering if there is a master circuit breaker that could kill all power to the car. If so where is it located and also where is the fuse box located on this wagon? Is the battery not compatible? It is just strange that nothing would work. Thanks, Wayne
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there is no master circuit breaker. I would check the battery connections. make sure the battery terminals are clean of all corrosion and the same for the cable ends. From there I would check the connection where the end of the cable attaches to the solenoid. Again make sure the terminals are clean and not corroded.
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Hi, Thanks for the tips. The red positive connection at the solenoid looked clean and good. The battery connections I guess could be wiped down but they looked pretty good as well. I did have to lean the battery back a little since the positive terminal cable was a little short. So I was wondering does the positive cable first hookup to the solenoid? If the solenoid goes bad, would it kill all power to the car? It's strange that I did get a good ground connection at the valve cover so maybe it has something to do with the positive connection? The wagon was used two years ago and the owner kept it in good mechanical shape. Thanks, Wayne
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If you do not have power anywhere, then power is not getting from the battery to anything. A couple of years of sitting could result in corrosion on connections that may look good. The solenoid sends power to the starter and you can jump the terminals with a screw driver to test it. Get a voltmeter and see how far the power goes.
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70XL wrote:
Get a voltmeter and see how far the power goes.
+1 in this case a volt meter is your best friend
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Hi, I used a multimeter and I know there was a ground connection to the chassis/ motor. I believe I tested the positive connection at the solenoid to the engine block and I had 12v. Yesterday I took by battery to autozone and they reported that it was only charged 35% and could only charge to 37% (hence bad). I thought at least the lights would have come on. Anyways I am going to try again with a known functioning battery. I was wondering since the car has been sitting since 2009-2010, do I need to prime the oil pump or can I just crank it? Thanks, Wayne
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Hi, I used a multimeter and I know there was a ground connection to the chassis/ motor. I believe I tested the positive connection at the solenoid to the engine block and I had 12v. Yesterday I took by battery to autozone and they reported that it was only charged 35% and could only charge to 37% (hence bad). I thought at least the lights would have come on. Anyways I am going to try again with a known functioning battery. I was wondering since the car has been sitting since 2009-2010, do I need to prime the oil pump or can I just crank it? Thanks, Wayne
You could pull one end of the wire from the coil to the distributor and use the starter to prime the oil system. Crank it over until the oil light goes out on the dash and it should be primed.
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