I drove the truck yesterday with no problems at all. It drove great. This morning it tried to crank, but would not kick over. I thought well, dead battery. But had to leave for work. So I took another vehicle.

I got home and put a volt meter on the battery and it read 12ish and when I tried to crank it again, it did nothing. I put a charger on the battery for a while and the battery will take and hold a charge, but when I tried starting, the interior lights would go off and come back on when the key was turned off. The voltage never dropped on the battery while an attempted start.

What the Hell. I am stumped.

Across the starting solenoid, the voltage drops to around 4 volts.

What do yall think?

 

Can you hear the solenoid click at all?

Use a small piece of wire to cross 3 & 5 and see what happens, it's the same as turning the key to START:



A jumper cable can be used to jump the fat connections on the solenoid (3 & 6) expect sparks but that should directly feed the starter motor.

I'm gonna guess that your solenoid has seen its last days; tapping on it with a hammer or screwdriver handle may bump the pieces inside enough to where it'll start working again but I'd nevertheless replace it ASAP with a non-Chinese-made variant if it turns ouot this is your problem.

 

When I connect the 3 & 5 posts it clicks the starter

 

OK.

You say the interior lights shut off when turning the key to START and the starter solenoid apparently doesn't get activated, so I'd be looking at the column-mounted ignition switch.

Perhaps cleaning & adjusting it will cure your problem.

 

They dont completely shut off, they go very dim

 

Well, still....

If jumping 3 & 5 at the solenoid gives the correct behavior, while turning the key doesn't, this points to a problem between the solenoid and the key.

My guess would be the ignition switch but you could have problems in the wiring harness anywhere along the way.

Turn the headlights on and then turn the key to START, how do they react?

If they get dim, this means the solenoid is at least partially supplying power to the starter and the problem exists between the battery & starter under the hood.

If the headlights don't react, then the starter isn't drawing power so you have to figure out why the solenoid isn't being actuated by the key.

 

I used the KISS method this morning and took the battery for testing.

New battery fixed the problem.

Thanks for the quick replies and ideas