Hello All,

The other day my 92 3.0 V6 Pickup wouldn't start, no cranking, no nothing. The starter wire connected to the battery ended up having a poor connection to the terminal so I jiggled it a little and the truck started fine and I made it home.

Once home I cut the terminal off, put a new one on and re crimped the connection. I tried starting the truck and it started up great.

Today I tried starting it, and it won't crank. Battery is good, and starter connection is good. When I try to start it the headlights cut out (I found this similar symptom using the search function, but couldn't find a solution).

Any suggestions? Replace some fuses in the fuse box? Or the relay?

Thanks for the help.

 

check out the solenoid inside the starter body. use a phillips to remove the back cover from the solenoid, inspect the copper plates in there and make sure they dont have a bunch of junk on them. if they do, attack it with a wire brush. reassemble. try to start it again. see if my magic trick worked

 

If the headlights cut out (why are the headlights on when you're trying to start it?), whatever you're doing is driving the battery voltage way down. So either you've got a discharged (or otherwise weak) battery, or you've got a DEAD short in the starter circuit. A good battery can put out 100 amps without much voltage drop, and a short that will take that kind of current is hard to do by accident.

Fortunately, this is easy to check. Measure the voltage at the battery with everything off. (No voltmeter? No excuse for that! http://www.harborfreight.com/7-funct...ter-98025.html) You should get about 12.6v (temperature dependent), but in no case less than 12.0v. Turn on the headlights. If the voltage drops below 12v you don't have enough battery to start it. Try charging the battery, or even easier, take the battery to a parts store where they can check it on a 'carbon pile tester.'

 

Thanks for the replies... I ended up redoing everything with good connectors from West Marine instead of the cheap ones that I used from harbor freight the first go round, and everything is working great.... for now at least.