I have said Escourt and am trying to find a part that Ford no longer offers. There is a connection on the negative battery terminal that has a brass connection that is bolted to the negative terminal. This brass connection is very thin and 1/2 of it has corroded away over the years. If the bolt is loose at all (negative battery cable) the car will not start. I checked the battery with a volt meter, 12.4 volts but when I check from the positive post to the firewall the voltage drops to less than 5. Once the brass connecter is put back under the nut and tightened down, you can hear a click. At that point the voltage across the + side to the neg connection at firewall is 12.4 volts and engine fired up.
This car sat for probably 15 years before I bought it, and had 17,000 original miles. I have had it about a year and it now has 20,000 miles. It runs good and is a nice old car just need to find a permanent fix for the starting issue.
I have NO idea what this part is called, but per my Ford parts dept. it is part of the wiring harness and wasn't sold separately even when it was available from Ford. If anyone has one of these escorts, look at the negative btry cable and you will see a black connecter with wires going to the firewall ground and behind the engine.
Sorry this is so long, hopefully someone will have a suggestion.
Thanks!!

 

I'm not sure if we might be talking about the same thing, but it does sound like the ground connection from the battery negative cable to the sheet metal (firewall) is not as good as it should be. They used several ground connections to overcome just the problem you are having. What should help correct the problem is to remove each of those ground wires, clean the terminals and reinstall them. If you have some dielectric grease , now is the time to apply it to the connections to help prevent corrosion which sometimes is difficult to see. You can always use Vasoline if nothing else is available. The only problem is it gets hot under the hood and Vasoline will melt and run off. When poor grounds are present those darn electrons will take another path if available and sometimes go through a relay circuit and that might be what you are hearing.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. We have replaced both cable ends, cleaned everything and coated with the dielectric grease. The issue is as I stated, the wireing harness connection to the ground wire is broken and works its way from under the bolt on the battery cable. I think I may have it fixed, time will tell.
Again thanks for your input.
John