The relay is definately something to look at as well. There is also a relay for the fuel pump. They are small cubes in the power/fuse box under the hood. They are interchangeable (see if the problem follows the relay), and are pretty cheap to replace. These relays are known to go bad with age (yours are almost 20 years old!), either become intermittant or just fail completely. I had the fuel pump one go bad on my 95 Ranger a while back. It drove me nuts with intermittant no start until I realized the "whirrrr click" sound of the fuel pump charging the line when the key was turned to on was not there when the engine would not start. I replaced all of the cubes, bought them at Kragan.
I do think all the Ford chassis owners are probably right about the fuel pump, this has been a very common problem, especially with age. People have installed an inline "back-up" pump along the frame, it will pull through the in tank pump even if it is dead.
I really am sorry for your frustrations. You have been running into some of the typical age related failures associated with Fords, but realize your Ford is almost 20 years old, and has been fully loaded (being an RV) it's entire life. Every manufacture has it's failures that show up, especially with age, Ford, GM or Dodge. I have now owned 4 Fords, partly because I now know many of these issues and when they come up I can troubleshoot them. I have been happy with my Fords. My Ranger had 275k miles when I sold it, my current DD focus has 147k adding 2200 a month, and our Expedition is just breaking in at 72k.
Good luck to you, I hope we can help you get many more miles out of your RV!
PS Funny about the starter, seems like it should not work! But electric motors have a lot of torque, all available at 0rpm, and a starter has a very low duty cycle (amount of time in use vs time off) so I guess it works. Dodge actually did use a gear reduction in their starters to turn over their V8s. The actual starter "motor" almost never fails, what does fail is the solinoid getting weak and contacts burning. Sometimes the components are replaceable. I replaced the solinoid / contacts but not the motor on my ranger. :)
