'96 Contour not starting

[Contour-Crazy]

Hello fellow ford owners....

Well, as the topic line has already stated I have '96 2.5 Contour LX.

Since I've bought the car I have had many problems, some being my fault due to my lack of mechanical knowledge. However, my most recent problem has my brother and I baffled to the bone.

 

So...this is how it started....I had recently parked my car due to a wheel bearing problem, that I was going to get too once I had the time and money to fix it. After a couple of weeks I decided to move my car so I could reposition it in the drive way. When I went to turn the key I got nothing; it wouldn't even crank over. This is when all the fun started. After my failed attempt to start it up we decided to jump the car to see if the battery had just gone dead, and again nothing. However, all the electrical components are still working such as the lights, radio, windows, locks, and all that fancy stuff. So just to be sure that it wasnt the battery we decided to take a battery out of the Mystique that I have and pop it in the Contour to eliminate all doubts...and again nothing. We also checked to see if the fuel pump was engaging and it is not. So we figured it was some sort of power source that was going to and from both of these parts. So in order to eliminate some other things before we concluded it was something electrical we decided to check the starter and it was okay. For me that was a lot of work under the hood but it didnt end there. We decided to do some simple checks such as internal fuses and the engine fuse and relay compartment. With a electrical/fuse checker we found that the fuse for the fuel pump would come on and instantly shut of after the a turn of the key. We also checked to see if there was power to the relays and, that was okay, there was. This is when we decided to bypass the starter relay and check if we could get the car to crank over and it did crank over but it didn't start up. SO....

We dont know if this is a relay problem or some other sort of problem or if the fuel pump fuse and relay are correlated in any way? Could some one please give us some advice? We're just two baffled fools looking for some help....

 

RT

[Aussie Ford]

Since you have a 96, and you are having electrical issues, the first thing that comes to mind is the TSB about the wiring harnesses. SO did this car have the wiring harnesses replaced under the recall?

 

There could be an issue with the mega fuse which is behind the engine on the pass side. You checked all the fuses and relays in the battery junction box and under the dash?

 

Do you have a Ford CD for your car?

 

AF

[Contour-Crazy]

Since you have a 96, and you are having electrical issues, the first thing that comes to mind is the TSB about the wiring harnesses. SO did this car have the wiring harnesses replaced under the recall?

 

There could be an issue with the mega fuse which is behind the engine on the pass side. You checked all the fuses and relays in the battery junction box and under the dash?

 

Do you have a Ford CD for your car?

 

AF

 

 

 

I had read something about a recall but I didnt know if you had to be the original owner of the vehicle. I've never recalled anything for this car, as a matter of fact I've never recalled anything.

 

When we were looking through the owner's manual we did see that there was another fuse box by the passenger side but for some reason we thought they were talkin about the battery junction box. We did however check all the other fuses and relays in and out of the car.

 

No I dont have a ford CD i have the original tape.

 

I will try and check the mega fuse compartment that you mentioned and look up the wire harness recall. Thanks for the advice i'll keep ya posted.

[Ray2]

Do you have a Ford CD for your car?

 

No I dont have a ford CD i have the original tape.

 

Well Henny Youngman would have been proud!

 

What aussie ford meant was a Ford shop manual on CD. Many of us have one. Even a Haynes manual might help. I hope I'm not tool late to tell ya the mega fuse has nothing to do with the starting system. It's a 175amp fuse used between the alternator and the battery in case the alt frags and puts out too much current. The fuse blows before burning up the battery and the rest of the electrical system. Assuming your an automatic I would start out by running the trans selector from Park down to 1 and back to P or N. There's a trans range sensor on top of the tranny that is part of the starting circuit. Car has to be in N or P to start. You could very well have bad wiring issues also.

 

Heres a Notepad copy of the wiring harness TSB that I got from someone else in here. There was a 10yr/100k mile time limit so you might be out of range for free repairs.

 

Recall_ONP_99M03.txt