Ever since I had my 54 back on the road since last September it would start hard after it was run and warmed up if I parked it for a short time and tried to start it again. It would start OK when cold. I thought the armature in the starter might be expanding from heat and then dragging and spinning slow.

My local auto-electric shop, owned by a good guy that rebuilt my generator and starter told me to bring the starter down and he'll check it or to give him a heads up and bring the truck down and he will pull it and check it. He rebuilt the starter in 1999 and looked at it again and freshened it up about 4 years ago.

On Friday I had the hood up and thought maybe I should look at the cable ends at the solenoid. I knew I had cleaned up the terminals at the battery but not this end. The cables are new.... relatively speaking. The auto-electric guy made them (0 gauge) in 1999. I cleaned with sandpaper the cable from battery to solenoid, and both cable ends from the solenoid to starter. Got in the truck and it spun fast and started easy. The true test would be after the truck was warm. Saturday I drove it around and parked it in the garage and it started easy. Today I drove it to Wal-Mart. When I came out it started easily. I got gas. And it started easily. I drove it home and shut it off and started it again easily....

So, lesson learned: keep you cable ends clean, even if you think they are "new"! To me and my truck 16 years is new but cable ends do corrode after those short 16 years.

 

So the lesson, class, is always clean your connections routinely. Good reminder.

 

That enforces the keep the connections clean and tight, especially for six volts, quite well, Abe.

 

Don't overlook the ground cables and straps as well. A large percentage of electrical gremlins can be traced to bad/intermittent/weak/missing grounds.

 

Thanks, Ax. The battery ground cable is good, did that last fall. I should check the engine to body ground though.

 

Don't forget cab to chassis, bed to chassis grounds as well, those are often missed/missing. One of the first steps I take in trouble shooting electrical problems is to hook up a temporary ground jumper from the problem item to the battery ground connection to see if it clears it up. I like to use star washers on both sides of any ground straps, electrical devices, lights mount bolts to be sure they bite in to make a good ground connection.