Blue truck lives under cover next to the house. Sometimes a few weeks without being driven. All of a sudden the truck wasn’t turning over so well. Sometimes just a click.
This happened before and I diagnosed it to bad ground wires.
This time the battery voltage was actually low though. Water level in battery is fire. I put truck on a charger overnight and it starts great, then a week later its not turning over again.
Eventually it gets pretty bad, starts great, drive somewhere, doesn’t want to start… the fact that its so periodic makes me think its wires. But I check the wires, they all look good… I remove them, grind the ends, nothing seems to help.
Given that there’s a bunch of corrosion around the batteries and they were old when I bought the truck 3 years ago, I’m thinking might as well get new batteries. I head to Costco and get a pair of 27DC batteries for $80 each. Change into truck in the parking lot and what do you know… the truck is still sluggish to start! And they are charged. Ok, not the batteries then…
New batteries but truck still has trouble starting
At home I check each battery again, undo all the cables and wires. I notice that the positive wire to the starter solenoid has a pretty loose end. This is a cable I haven’t touched. Actually the end is attached well but the wire at the end of the head is unusually bendy… yeah, seems like maybe that wire bundle is broken inside. It has low resistance if measured with a multimeter but it won’t flow enough power to start the truck.
This is the cable from battery positive to starter solenoid. That wire was pretty bendy right at the inner end of the crimp!
I cut off the end, crimp on a new one and bingo, aggressive start like I remember. I didn’t bother to replace the wire since it seems to be nice flexible stuff.
Can see how outside of cable was burned – it got toasted trying to flow too much current.
So… bad cables… evil!
New crimp from west marine, pounded onto slightly shorter cable. Is good! And no need to spend $20 on a new cable.
CanadianBJ 