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Comments
A battery can be "load tested", but it should be charged up first. Don't forget to check the condition and tightness of the battery cables as well. Corroded or loose cables can cause a bad connection.
The charging system can be checked with the truck running (see YouTube for a simple test using a voltmeter)
And finally, for the parasitic drain test, which is a bit more involved, here's a good tutorial from POPULAR MECHANICS
Good luck tracking down your problem!
Why don't you try a jump-start and see what happens? If it fires right up then your battery is probably too weak, or your starter motor. You might also pull a spark plug to check the condition. When was this truck last tuned up?
Push-starts turn the engine over a lot faster than a starter motor.
If you get just one click for every time you turn the key, then I would suspect bad connections or a faulty solenoid (that sits atop the starter. This solenoid is basically a heavy switch. If you get multiple light clicks, then it's probably a dead battery. If you get one heavy "thunk", then the engine is not turning.
Another possibility is a bad starter, which can be pulled out and bench-tested---although a starter can sometimes work on the bench and not in the car.
If by chance the alternator is junk would it cause it not to catch in gear to start? ?
https://youtu.be/CbGM4HoIyhU
When an engine cranks but doesn't start, (which is what you have) the first thing that anyone would have to do is figure out what is missing, as in spark, fuel, or compression, and then they have to work to figure out why.
For example....
You could be missing spark but still have fuel. If testing showed that to be the case some things are ruled out and others become more likely and a skilled technician would use that detail to help him/her choose the best test and efficiently prove what is wrong.
You could have spark but actually be missing fuel. That could be an issue where you are missing fuel pressure or the injection pulse, either one is no fuel. BTW that also means checking to make sure that the fuel isn't contaminated. (Bad fuel is essentially no-fuel)
To take this a little further when we talk about having spark, you might actually have it, but it also has to happen at the right time. Fuel, you could have that but it has to be the right amount. Compression also has to include fresh air. The reason to point this out is the inputs to the computer have to be correct in order for it to know when to fire the spark plugs and/or how long to turn the injectors on.
No matter what, a crankshaft position sensor or circuit issue is only one plausible reason for such a symptom, it is far from being the only one. So you do have spark and fuel when you start this up. What do you lose when it quits and wont restart? Spark? Fuel? Loss of both?
Is this setting any trouble codes at all?
It’s not the fuel pump relay mine use to do the same thing then eventually it started running like [non-permissible content removed] and died. So I put a new motor in it and I never had that problem again so whatever the problem was is in the motor and mine did the same exact thing I would drive to work shut it off and I couldn’t turn it back on but if I waited 10 to 30 minutes it would fire up again
There is a typical Ford starter "solenoid" that will be very close to the battery, it's the first thing that the positive battery cable connects to. You should see a 12v command on the little wire on the solenoid when the conditions are correct and the key is in the "crank" position.