howdy folks,
My Grandpa's truck is having a bit of a problem shuting down. We were driving it today and after we brought it back to his house, and turned the key off nothing happened. So I popped the hood and was going to shut it down manually when it started to stumble and died. So I started it back up, and it fired right off. Turned the key off and nothing. Then like before after about 15-20 seconds the truck stumbled and died. It does it every time like that. I figure it's prolly in the solenoid or in the relays, but were do you's think it is? Truck has sat for about 1 1/2 months or so before today, and sits around quite a bit (8,000 miles in 3 years) so i dunno if that'd have anything to do with it or not. So what do yalls think? Oh it's a 97.

Thanks,
*****

 

I think your guess's are good , sometimes the contacts in the starter solinoid will stick together , to test , test lite from starter solinoid wire gong to fuel shutoff , there should be power ing. sw. in on pos. , but no power in off pos. , if pwr. in on pos. then contacts are fused together [ may be intermitent ] , the fix is 2 point , 1st rebuilt starter [ with a builder that uses the larger contacts ] 2nd a diode that keeps this from happening next time , Larry Bs is a source for all parts for both fixs .
Basicly the same thing can happen to the fuel shutoff relay [ points fuse ] .
You need to isolate where the feed back is coming from to fix .

 

ok, Thanks John. Would miles have an effect on whether or not to suspect the starter for problems? this truck only has 48,000 on it and 10,000 of those miles was on a long vacation to alaska and back pulling a 5ver so I wouldn't think the starter should be bad already, but I'll check it anyways.

 

He's got 48,000 on a 97 ?
Does he want to sell his problem , Joke-joke ?
Under normal conditions I would say no , maybe over 200,000 , but then time is a factor also , but do the testing .
Save money , test then replace not replace to see if the problem goes away .

 

If the shut down solenoid boot is missing or torn up it's likely that gunk inside the solenoid is hanging it up. Remove the solenoid and clean the innards well. Lube the shaft with a slight amount of silicone grease. Even if the boot is intact do this.
By your description I don't think the starter is the problem.

 

Ok, I got to looking into this a little more, but not just to terribly much. I looked at the boots on the solenoid and it's in good shape. Thing that's kinda confusing me now is the more times you start and stop it the faster it shuts off. Almost like there's something that got stuck or bound up in it while it was sitting and now that it's getting used it's loosening up. It still aint right but now shuts off before you can get outa the cab. So I dunno what to look for now. Do I just keep running it and hope it finally gets to the point that it works properly, or what else is there to look at? I didn't get into really doing anything to the solenoid today, just checked it, so does it sound like this might be gunk getting in it?

 

Have someone else shut it down, and watch to see if the solenoid drops quick or slow.

 

Take the linkage off , take a close look at the joints , see how well the pivot .
Put back together with antiseze .

 

I think we are starting to hit on the problem now , the shutdown solonoid has a "heim" type joint at the bottom of it , this was ceased up on my friends truck , and after installing a fuel plate , the truck would not shut off , removal of the solonoid and lubing and cleaning everything up solved the problem.

 

Ok, thanks for the help folks, will look into this next time I get a chance in a couple days.