[Shotimes] SHO is down... hope i didn't f' it up too bad...

[Steve Weinrich]

Mine did almost the same thing last winter all by itself.  I hadn't been
working on it recently.

I'm still runing the same POS battery a year later, but I do have a new
starter AND a new negative battery cable.

It turns out that my starter was intermittently pulling over 200 amps when
tested on the bench so it was replaced as a precaution.  My primary problem
was that the negative cable was corroded and bubbled inside the insullation
down near the connection to the starter/block.

It is easy to test for excessive drop in the cables, it only takes a digital
voltmeter.  SP motorsports has a page that describes it better than I can.
It's located here:  http://www.spmotorsports.com/starter_troubleshoot.html

BTW, my cable smoked, also.  When I got it out, the first 8-6 inches of the
cable was green from corrosion inside the insulation.  I replaced it with a
generic clear insulation cable from Parts America for about $14.  The
original Motorcraft battery harness was around $120!

Steve