Pesky t-bird ignition problems

You are sure that your battery is fully charged?

Dirty or bad battery cables, and the battery terminals, can cause a lot of problems, exactly like the ones you describe. All these connections and terminals need to be clean and firmly attached.

Fords also use a firewall mounted starter solenoid in the cabling to the starter. If that solenoid is bad, it can click but fail to couple enough power to the starter to spin it up.

After that, you are down to the starter itself and the cable connections to it.

Luckily, all this is pretty easy to troubleshoot and repair.

Just a guess that you would have taken care of a loose or corroded battery connection problem at the battery terminals before you wrote this question. A Simple test for this the condition you described: When you turn on the lights and attempt an engine start the lights will dim some but should not go out. Attempt a jump-start with a good set of jumper cables (not the cheapy-cheap kind), if the engine turns over, it needs a new battery. If the starter will not turn the engine over while set up for a jump-start your problem is in the wiring, relay or solenoid.

Thanks for the information so far.

I wonder what a firewall-cellinoid looks like? I guess I'll have to ask the parts store guy show me since I don't have a T-bird repair guide...I've been getting my general information offa a Oldsmobile guide.

Just follow the main battery cable and clean both ends. The far end of the positive cable will be the starter solenoid. They are cheap to replace and famous for having dirty connections causing your symptoms.

Mike