OK, I'm throwing in a bizarre idea on these battery related failures which seem illogical when the engine seems to spin over ok, but no start.
I come from an electronics/electrical background so I apologize for sounding like an engineer. The batteries have many connections internal joining all those plates. Those connections can become like miniature resistors that can have intermittent connections. So if one battery is ok for the most part, the engine might or might not start, even when spinning fast enough.

The issue is that that bad battery or batteries is injecting electrical noise into the trucks power line, much like miniature lightening striking a power line outside your house. Their is no way (except an expensive filter system) to prevent that noise from appearing in all of the 12 volt power circuits. This can easily confuse computerized logic circuits. The pulses of electrical noise will flow right on through the power supply in each module in the truck. The newer the vehicle, the higher the data speed in the modules. This makes the modules more sensitive to electrical noise. I have solved electrical issues in multiple vehicles by replacing batteries over the last 10 years.

Larry

 

Well, like I said, changing the batteries has corrected the issue and it no longer does this. But, when it did occur it sounded like it was somewhere behind the dash. Not sure if i could say it was in the radio area, just that it was behind the dash. But im not following what you are getting at. What do you think it could have been?

 

Larry, from one engineer to another it makes perfect sense. Even if you are a sparky..... haha

 

Maybe the disc reader in the radio? When jammed up or something is wrong, CD drives can click as they look for discs or try to eject or load a disc.

I've seen it numerous times in computers and a few times in hot dashes with warped discs

 

When my truck battery was dead from leaving parking lights on, there was lots of clicking in the dash until the batteries were charged up enough to crank it

 

Those were just the gremlins snickering at our misfortunes

 

Correct. Ive experienced that before, but would get nothing but the clicks when turning ignition. This was the same noise, but it did turn over the engine and eventually would start. Never experienced that before. So that was a new one on me. But will keep all this in my memory rolodex for future use, that is until i forget about it....lol

In regards to the cd player being the source for the clicks, i can say that was not it. But all good ideas for future reference, but it appears that all i had was a bad battery.