cmon travis im 45 mins away! i woulda came up and helped lol..

haha i know...its wasnt that much work just getting the time to work on it was the hardest.


i got a new ground cable(battery to starter mounting bolt) starts right up!

Umm, there's something being missed here, and can be found with a simple ohm-meter. On your truck, like mine, the + wire should split at the clamp. One large wire going to the starting relay on the fender, the other going straight to the SOLENOID on the starter. That thing on the fender is NOT your solenoid. From that relay, there should be another red wire, about a #10 gauge, that goes to the small terminal on the starter. I had this same symptom on mine, and put a new battery on, then a new starter, only to finally find out that the large wire (1/0 AWG, I think) going from the battery to the large terminal on the starter was broken/burnt off inside the molded lead clamp. Take the clamp loose at the battery, and use a jumper of some sort to connect to that clamp. Take your ohm-meter under the truck after you drop that jumper down near the starter. Check for continuity in the big wire from the starter to the clamp.

Normally, you can actually FEEL it when the starter solenoid picks up, because that's a pretty large coil and sizeable chunk of iron slamming large contacts home to close the starter armature circuit. Get someone to help, and have them turn the key with your hand on the fender mounted relay. You'll feel it pick up if it indeed is. Next, do the same with the solenoid, but use a stick standing BESIDE the truck, and put the stick against the solenoid. If it's picking up, you'll feel it.

Check the cable that goes from the battery straight to the starter very closely. Another way is to stick a straight pin through the insulation a few inches back from the clamp, then just check continuity from the clamp to the pin. With the clamp off the battery, and the meter still connected, flex the clamp on the end of the cable and watch the meter.

After $70 worth of battery, and $140 for a starter, a $2 replacement clamp fixed my real problem. My starter was the original on the truck, though, 16 years old, and 155,000 miles, so it was giving up anyway. That's probably what caused the cable failure in the clamp. If you're lucky, you'll have some discoloration of the insulation near the clamp indicating it's been hot. Mine had NO such discoloration, and NO indication whatsoever the cable had gone bad inside the clamp until I checked it with a meter.

I posted a diagram here or on "the other site" about this showing an elementary of the starter circuit, and where the battery failed. If I can find the file, I'll post it again tomorrow.