you turn the key and notihing. sometimes a clik but usually nothing then you turn it again or a few times and its fine. rep;aced starter, alt, neutral safety switch, battery and wires. if you disconect the battery and hook it back up it goes away for a week or two. any thoughts

 

Seen your problem numberous times on Taurus', Sables, Ranger, Aerostars, Windstars and so on. Issue has to do with normal battery post oxidation. You'll have enough contact surface for the lights and such to work fine, but not enough to get the amperage flow required to engage and turn the starter.

Try this:

Pull your cables offthe battery. Take some scotch brite and clean the battery terminals real good. Then do the same to the insides of the battery cable connectors. Re-install the cables snuggly, then apply a light coating of dielectrical grease to the terminal/connectors.

 

did like you showed me. now problem is just nearly gone. just does it very very infrequently

 

What year vehicle and how old is the battery? I had this issue on my 2000 Taurus. I maintain my batteries by topping the cells off to the correct level in the spring and fall and checking each cell. To me, a MAINTENANCE FREE battery isn't MAINTENANCE FREE if the tops are removable. The removable tops are hidden under those stupid battery covers. I can normally run these batteries for 12+ years. Anyways,Isold the Taurus to my son back in April. The car was starting to have an intermittent no-start attitude. Checked the voltage of all the cells and I had one that was about 1 vdc low. One cell is just enough to cause an intermittant " no starter engagement" problem. So I installed a new Motorcraft battery. Believe it or not, Ford had the best price and warranty than the local Auto-Zone, NAPA and Wal-Mart. The car has had no issues since.