Archived No Start

[Neal Cassady]

Truck won't start. Went out this morning, turned key to start and nothing. Thought maybe I didn't have the clutch down all the way. Made sure clutch was down and tried again, nothing. Tried a few more times and now get a very weak clicking sound from the solenoid. Tested the batteries with a multimeter, both read OK at 12. 41 volts. Don't have a load tester but I think the batteries are fine. Volt gauge on the dash doesn't move, pegged to the left at 8 volts. Lift pump gives the short run when key is turned to run but it will not run for 25 seconds when you bump the starter. If I leave the key in the run posistion for a while the battery gauge will climb up to around 13 but still no start. Radio receives intermittent power while this is going on, clicks on and off. I checked all the fuses in the PDC and swapped relays but no luck. Truck has around 95K on it and has never had any starting problems before. I did try to run the 25 second lift pump priming on Friday to check a fuel pressure fluctuation and it took 3 bumps of the the starter to get the lift pump to run. Anybody have any ideas?



Update: The six chimes that sound after turning the key to run will sound again and again if you leave the key in the run posistion. Sometimes it will sound all six again other times it will only sound a few.



Thanks,

Neal

 

[p-Bar]

load test the batteries 1st if ok then check your battery cables could have a bad one with high resistance

 

[Neal Cassady]

Looks like it was the simple solution. Had some spare time this evening and ran the batteries over to the local Advanced Auto. They load tested them on a computer battery tester and both batteries failed. Two new batteries and the truck fired right up. I did the APPs reset as a bonus.



The weird thing was the batteries failing without warning and the behavior of the lift pump and the battery gauge and the instrument panel chime. Have some LarryB contacts and plunger on the way. Going to replace them this weekend.



Thanks,

Neal