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.

New Update: Solenoid clicking has become much weaker with repeated starting attempts. Multimeter stills shows batteries at around 12.4 volts

Thanks,
Neal

 

Sounds like maybe a poor ground someplace? Have you checked all of your battery cables ?

 

what year is your truck.......do your lights work? does your radio work? how old are your batteries? i had old batteries both showed over 12 v but had no more cranking amps...was time to replace them....if your power and connections are good and all you get is click click then your starter contacts are probably gone.....oh yeah and how do your terminals look? clean those up

 

Year 2001.5
Radio takes a while to come on, sometimes will power on/off on its own
Original batteries, approx 95K miles
Battery terminals are clean.

 

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