I goofed up today - starting problem

[chill63]

I picked up 4 tons of limestone today to finish off my side driveway, when I parked the deuce on the front driveway the parking brake didn't want to hold all of the extra weight on the incline, so I left the truck in gear to give it a little more hold while I got the tires chocked. Anyhow, I never leave the truck in gear, so when I went to move the truck a little while later I hit the starter button and it bumped forward a bit. I immediately realized I had forgot to take it out of gear after chocking the tires. Well, I put the truck in neutral, hit the starter button again and nothing happened. All of the gauges went to zero, but that was it. I've made sure all of the battery cables are tight, tried bypassing the starter button and tapped the starter/solenoid a few times with a hammer, but still nothing. What should I check next???

 

[ida34]

Check directly between the engine and the firewall. The main wire runs through this area and on my truck the insulation rubbed though on the rear pickup eye. When the wire made contact to ground on the mount it melted though the wire disconnecting it. A GI fixed it by just twisting and taping. It rubbed though again on me and it took me a day or two to figure it out.

Good Luck
Chuck

 

[devilman96]

You should get a click out of the solinoid even if the starter is messed up... Being that the guages are dropping (showing amps being pulled) I would think the bendix is stuck. Or you could have loaded a cell on the battery so hard it went kaput!

 

[chill63]

Thanks for the replies. I checked the wiring and all looks good. I'm leaning towards it being the batteries. I just put my volt meter on them and one was reading 10.6 volts and the other 12.5 volts. I get 23.1 volts across both as expected. When I turn the power on it drops to about 20 and then less than 10 when I hit the starter button. I checked the cells, and none of them appeared low on water. I geuss it's time for some new batteries....

 

[Jones]

Sounds like a stuck bendix to me too. Making sure the engine stop control is pulled out, remove the inspection plate from the bottom of the bell housing and try barring the engine opposite it's normal direction of rotation. If the bendix is hung up that should pop it loose.

 

[chill63]

OK...I'll give that a shot before I get new batteries...

 

[jwaller]

a good battery should check out around 12.1-12.7v. if it's low you also have a battery problem. and it not fixed it will cause the other battery to die as well.