Car has been sitting and it has been cold, having some engine issues before the winter. I went to start it after about 2 months and no electrical at all; battery is charged, fuses look good. No lights inside or anything, cleaned terminals and put a new connection on the negative, replacing Positive connection tonight. What else should I try? Super lost on what to do.

 

Welcome to the forums!

I can't tell what you've done, so I'm gonna go basic here from the beginning.

Get a multimeter, set for DC voltage, Test battery only, no connections. Should read 12V and a little more if it's fully charged. If not, dead battery, probably need a new one. If so, monitor that and see if it drops as you're reading. It should not, unless it's a loong time later between checking. If it drops, the battery is discharging without being connected and you need to either clean the battery so the terminals aren't shorting, or the battery's dead and you need a new one.

Ok, battery passes. Next step, connect battery, test ground. One end of multimeter on the positive, one on a bolt or bracket. Should be 12V. If not the ground cable and connections thereto are bad, need to inspect and fix as needed.

Ground passes? You are now looking for a needle in a haystack, but there is hope! Get thee a shop manual with the wiring diagram and diagnostics, and perform the diagnostics step by step. Do not assume, do not jump ahead, even if it means rechecking the above. Things it could be is a bad fuse, bad relay, bad ignition cylinder, bad wiring, bad connector(s), bad ground elsewhere... and a few other things I'm not bringing up, probably.

It will (siphon with a large amount of negative pressure) but that's where you're at, my fellow Mustang person. We can throw things at the wall and see if they stick for your case, but the only way to be sure is the diagnostics and checking point to point. My *GUESS*, pulling it out of thin air from waaaaay over here in my computer chair is the ignition cylinder, but I'd avoid throwing parts at this problem until you know for sure where it is.

Hope that helps, although I'm sure it's not the answer you want/were looking for. I wish you luck!

/One other guess: rusty connection for ground or positive. Unless the cable's *broken*, you shouldn't have to replace them. Maybe just the ends possibly. Again *guess*.

 

Thank You, i'll pick one up and start checking it after school today.

 

Be aware, the Haynes or Chilton won't necessarily have the instructions/diagnostics. Please read into it before you buy either. The likely thing is you'll need a *FORD* shop manual. I hope I caught you in time for that.

To that end... here:
https://cardiagn.com/1996-1999-servi...kshop-manuals/

MAY be what you need. It's a 3 Gig file from Mega.nz that contains lots of relevant materials for your year, including the wiring diagrams and the diagnostics... or so it says. I'm not sure. But you can try it.