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Originally Posted by Dragncar

If you ran a jumper wire from the battery to the S terminal with good cable to the starter and nothing happened, you have a bad solenoid. I used to take them apart and clean the contacts, have you tried that ?
A 12V solenoid is a simple device with a coil. If all the contacts are good and you have the right voltage and amps and its jumped and nothing happens, you have a bad coil/solenoid.
You might want to run a ground jumper wire to the starters frame, that would cover it all.
I cured a LOT of starter problems by running a Fold solenoid on the fender well and one big fat wire to the starter with a jumper wire down there between the big lug on the starter itself and the purple/start terminal on the solenoid.
If you do that the Ford starter takes the initial hit on its contacts a millisecond before the big contacts on the starter solenoid on the starter itself. So, its contacts last a super long time and there is no purple wire going to the starter to get cooked. That cooked purple wire causes a lot of problems.
Just protect the one big cable going down to the starter.
Bet if you do the Ford solenoid deal your problems will be over.
Some people run a diode to prevent a back feeding of current. I have not had a issue, I think it has something to do with the difference between a permanent magnet starter and a electro magnet starter.
I will ask the electric wiz kid that question at work tomorrow.

I have not tried cleaning the contacts. I can try that tomorrow.

Is it possible that the solenoid is bad even though the starter works fine when I bench tested it?

I did try two solenoids; I guess it's possible they're both bad, but one is brand new and the other was working a few days ago.

Thanks,

Scott