My husband and i were trying to check the fuse box on our 97 ford Econoline Van, because the radio and alarm stopped working,and when we tried to turn it back on, everything powers up but the van will not crank to turn on! Help!!!

...okay, what did you do? all you should have needed was a flashlight, and this woudn't have affected the fuses. No.1 take a look at your battery. Hose it down if it has corrosion, and wirebrush the connectors. Also the ground stud eyelet and it's connections may be giving us troubles-

No.2 this way you'll have the neeeded AMPERAGE to kick your starter 'round and 'round. Be sure and wash the battery acid off with the hose.

3. auxilliary devices frequently use a third eyelet (ooo eastern) on the power stud. be sure this eyelet gets shiny and brite before you re-assemble it. I think this one is for auxilliary devices and may in fact be broken-

Battery posts are clean, theres power to the vehicle. Lights work, radio works, horn works, just will not crank to turn on when we try to turn the key forward! we just changed the starter spent $145 hoping that would bethe problem(which we already new it wasnt) and nothing. Its still doing the same thing. Im almost thinking its an electrical problem, OR, its the fuse box. I cant afford to have it towed to a shop so im trying to exhaust my options of what it could be.

my cohort tenspeed is a mechanic of 40+ years, I'm sure he'll chime in with a magical answer based on truth. Most of these GURUs have been at it a long time. I've got mechanic experience from 93-96 plus my time keeping rust buckets afloat in Milwaukee, so I'm probably not your GURU been at it for about 4 months and have had plenty of right answers, but aside from the starter solenoid, or power to the starter solenoid...I run out of guesses. tenspeed will help you. He carries some weight with this. Llregal is terrific, takes a while to think it thru. DavidH25 is a grand-master as well 7Jimmy7 is suprisingly adept yet still guesses at the solution, same as me. This job doesn't pay anything is the generousity of people who care about you and your machine~

My fathers 99 Lincoln had ruffly the same problem. He had to replace the alarm system. Never mess with the radio because the alarm runs through it and in his case, trying to change radios shorted out the alarm. Exact same radio, just a better looking face.

there is a panic "fuel cutoff switch" that may need to be reset if someone bumped the bumper~ it is located on the driver's side behind the kick panel there...it is red (as I recall...could be black)~ one push and you'll have restored fuel pressure....if turning the key to the 'on' position, you couldn't hear the gasoline whooshing through the system~