2004 F250 here. Ran into a weird electrical problem. Went to start the truck and as soon as the starter solenoid clicked in all my dash lights flickered and power to the whole truck seemingly died. No headlights, no dash lights, no interior lights. Did not even try and turn over once. Turned off the ignition and tried again, got lights on the dash but trying to crank gave the same result. Tried a 3rd time and now no power came back, everything dead in every key position.

Didn't have a multimeter or tools on me to try and diagnose but I visually inspected all the fuses, battery cables and the fusebox power connection on the driver side fender liner and found nothing suspicious. Thought maybe it lost a ground somewhere so I tried using jumper cables to connect the battery ground to various points on the chassis and engine block but that made no difference.

After waiting 30 minutes for a ride home the interior dome light decided to come back on and the headlights started working. I could briefly turn the ignition on (not cranking) and the dash would light up, but power to the whole truck would immediately die again, including headlights. I have no idea what to make of this.

I'll bring a meter with me tomorrow and see what I can see, but anyone seen anything like this before?

FWIW, the starter, alternator and battery are all new within the last 2 years but based on symptoms I'm not really suspicious of any of those items.

 

Classic symptom of a faulty battery, battery connection, or battery cable.

Use your meter and do voltage drop testing to pinpoint.

 

Yeah it was the battery. It seems to have developed an internal short between cells or something. With load applied it was fluctuating between 12V and 3V as I cycled the ignition to the ON position.

Installed new battery and drove it home no issues.

 

I would say dirty clamp connection too.

 

What part of "battery connection" did you miss?

 

I'm agreeing with with you.