ok for some time now ive been having problems with my eletrical in my 84 cougar. now the battery keeps draning. checked all connections there good. but im starting th think my starter is supect. now i know a bad alt can drain a battery and had my alt tested and it was fine. now i know a melted wire in a starter can cause a dran. but basically what i did is a simple test. jumped the silinoid terminals with some power and it did spark but didn't crank. so is that my prob the starter took a dump? plus its super cold out too. and right now my car sits at work and i have someone who has a starter from his 5.0 f150 88 will it bolt right up? and any advice would be great. thanks for your time guys needed to rant a bit.
What do you mean jumped them with power?
I just stick a screw driver between the two. It should crank with or without keys in if I remember right. Also, I think all 3.8-5.0 starters are the same. Just make sure it is the larger kind, instead of the higher torque mini starter kind.
what i did was i took the red connection on my jump pack and hooked it up to the wire that goes to the starter and nothing happened at all.