Dirta problem with truck
 

So every once and a while my truck just wouldnt start. The starter would just click once everytime you turned the key. Battery was fine, lots of power from it according to my digital capacitor display and the meter reading. Even tried a boost just incase, but still nothing.

So my truck was parked outside a store for 2 days, i went back tried to start it, and it started without a problem. This has happened 3 times before. Wanting to go out at 11pm, wont start. Go out in the morning and starts fine. I tightened the wires going to the terminals on the battery and just bought a new battery. Everyonce and a while the car starts a little rough, and other times the starter seems to work fine.


The question is, what is causing this? Could it be my sound system. Starter or altenator? Any ideas will help:appl:

Starters on its way out man.. i have had this problem a few times, once in my s-10, twice in my firebird and once in my suburban...it confused me at the time because it worked fine sometimes and other times it just clicked once and thats all....if its easy to get at(cant remmeber on ur truck if it is) hit it with a hammer when you try and strat it, to temporarily fix the situation, should work. the hammer trick helped me out a lot (my old boss told me about it, im a mechanic aprentice, know a few tricks). Good Luck Man.

Starters on its way out man
it has a die spot in it
as he said "hit it with a hammer" will move it so it will work but do not hit so hard you crack it

hitting the starter with anything will only work for a little while then it will just quit on ya so i would get a start as soon as you can.

if you own a GM product, there is a very great chance that you have or will at some point tap your starter to get out of that parking lot you thought you were stuck in... having owned nothing but GM I can attest to it... the second car recieved daily starter taps and somehow the car crapped before the starter did (didn't wanna bother replacing the fuel pump)... my current car has only had one tapping incident, which happened the night of my birthday after working for 8 hours (go figure) and hasn't happened since... sometimes the solenoid plunger will stick in a bad place and the tapping just loosens it up I favour a small maglite over something heavier.. good luck to all you owners out there.. if I owned a honda that wouldn't start I wouldn't know what to do..

could be your solonoid
 

check the connections to your solonoid make sure they are clean and free of rust corrosion and dirt.if the terminals on you solonoid are rusted you might want to use some die electic grease when you connect them then try tapping it like everyone else has told you but if that does work you will need a starter soon

:thumbsup: thanks for the help everyone. Seems like it was the starter/soloinoid. put in a whole new starter for a pretty good price and we clear of problems now!

Had a similar problem some time ago. The starter solinoid helped but the problem came back after a few months. Replaced the starter an problem gone for 2 years now.

The tapping of the starter with a hammer trick has worked for me, on everything from 1970's Plymouths to 1980's Toyotas, that is not a GM only solution.