I got off from work today, found my 98 wouldn't start. I jumped out the relay, and heard the solenoid click every time. I bought some baking soda, and cleaned the rather nasty terminals, still no love.

I finally crawled under the truck, and found the starter was loose. The lower inboard bolt was missing, and the other two were loose. No ground, no start...

Anyway, I can't find the bolt online, and I missed the Dealer's parts department. Does anyone have the part number handy? Or maybe somewhere I could order it online?

 

You might try Larry B's at Info@FosterTruck.com he has the selenoid rebuild kits that sounds like you need, plus alot of orther good stuff!

 

Do you have a Fastenal near you? They always have an abundance of fasteners in stock, and if they don't stock it they can get it to you. Their website is www.fastenal.com

I've also had great luck with boltdepot.com I had to order an air-horn bolt from these guys, had it in 2 days with standard shipping.

 

Nah, the solenoid is fine. The problem was that there wasn't enough contact between the starter and the engine to ground out the starter motor. It should be fine with all three bolts in there.

Thanks for the links guys, I appreciate it. I believe there is a Fastenal in Seattle, but it's a few hours from me. If the dealer can't get it in a timely manner, I'll have to drive down there.

 

I believe its a 10mm fine thread, about 30-35mm long. 12 point, to match the other two.

 

Surprisingly, the dealer only charged me $4 for the bolt...should have it tomorrow. And you are right, all three bolts are the same. I couldn't remember if they were different lengths or not. I guess I'm going to have to put some loc-tite on those bolts...

 

Definitely blue loctite the bolts. When I did my starter, I put it back in like normal and luckily a few days later I decided to crawl under the truck to see how things were going because two of the bolts were loose! Because of its location it's hard to make the bolts real tight (and I'm not sure if you'd want to) so loctite is the answer.