Won't crank, stranded, almost. (1 Viewer)

[Lefty]

Hi Dan, the exact thing happened to me on the back of Elephant Hill a few months ago. Turned out the culprit was loose/dirty connection of my positive battery cable to the terminal was causing an arc that killed power after the initial attempt to start the truck. I only figured that out after removing the accessory cables from the positive terminal and cleaning it up. Since then it's been a non-issue.

 

[Dan Armino]

For what it's worth I had a weird no-start issue a few months ago and thought it was the battery. Replaced, still had a problem. Thought it was the starter then, pulled it to replace but found out it was perfectly fine. Ended up being the small connector on the starter that plugs into the ignition wire. Loose/dirty connection. Wiggled it a bit and she fired right up. No problem since. This may not be your problem but it's something to keep in mind because I never would have thought that would have been the problem and spent two days (it was parked in the driveway) messing with the truck only to find that cleaning a connection would have fixed my issue.

After checking pretty much everything suggested by the ih8mud members and rebuilding my starter, (the starter contacts were in good shape including the plunger, I cleaned the entire starter including the armature and brushes then re-greased the gears and replaced all of the contacts and plunger anyway). The only thing that looked suspect was the small connector that you mentioned in your reply, it was loose and a little dirty, so I cleaned it with electrical contact cleaner and put it on and off a number of time to insure a good connection. I made another trip to Tahoe last weekend and all was good which is not surprising as it has only happen twice in the last 1.5 years, time will tell if that solved the problem. Thanks again to everyone for all the replies!

 

[Dan Armino]

the causes of your problem have been listed so I’m gonna address something else. Which aaa membership do you have. Mine was towed twice this weekend. One tow was 11 miles or so and the next was 125. All “free”.

I had AAA standard roadside assistance which only covers 5 miles of towing, I upgraded to premium roadside assistance which covers up to 200 miles of towing. I was completely unaware that there was different levels of AAA roadside assistance. Note, after upgrading levels it takes 48 hours for it to become affective for obvious reasons.

 

[Wrencher93]

After checking pretty much everything suggested by the ih8mud members and rebuilding my starter, (the starter contacts were in good shape including the plunger, I cleaned the entire starter including the armature and brushes then re-greased the gears and replaced all of the contacts and plunger anyway). The only thing that looked suspect was the small connector that you mentioned in your reply, it was loose and a little dirty, so I cleaned it with electrical contact cleaner and put it on and off a number of time to insure a good connection. I made another trip to Tahoe last weekend and all was good which is not surprising as it has only happen twice in the last 1.5 years, time will tell if that solved the problem. Thanks again to everyone for all the replies!

Yeah man, completely shocked me when I realized that's all it was. Glad you got her running again!