Starter issues on my 2000 E450

Question

Hello all,I have a 2000 Tioga Ford E450 chassis.  It will not start.  I had my neighbor who is a mechanic take a look at it and the battery is good.  There is power to the starter and the starter works. The problem is that when you try to use the key to start the engine, nothing happens.  I do not have an owners manual and the fuse box is not labeled.  I pulled every fuse and there are no blown fuses.  My neighbor thinks it could be a safety neutral switch or a fuse.  Any ideas and where is the safety neutral switch located?  Any assistance would be great.

carringb · Answer

Most likely its the fender mounted starter relay. Its next to the battery and is easy to bypass by jumping the terminal with pliers. Just be double sure its in park, as this also bypasses the neutral safety switch. Also, you can test the neutral safety switch by turning the key on, shifting the Neutral, then starting. If it starts then, its probably the NSS.

j-d · Answer

Bryan mentioned the fender mounted solenoid. Has anybody replaced, removed, tinkered with it? We had a case here recently where the terminal that powers most of the chassis got connected to the Starter side of that Solenoid and not the Battery side. That meant no power to things like the key switch unless the fender mount was somehow energized. And at that point the starter would be running, can't operate that way.

jvkaveman · Answer

Thanks for the info Bryan, I finally got back to work on the motorhome and pulled the battery out and found the starter relay that you mentioned.  I used a screw driver to touch the terminals and the starter engaged.  I will replace the relay and hopefully get the beast back on the road.  Thanks again.

fourthclassc · Answer

My experience with this Ford situation has been that the starter switch in the steering column failed.  Jumping across the termials of the starter relay confirms this in my opinion.  I made up a work around by using a momentary switch and connected to the relay because I was not prepared to dissasemble the steering just yet.

jeffengle · Answer

you need to check for power to the small wire on the solenoid to verify that it is bad.

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Starter issues on my 2000 E450

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