Hey guys,

Looking for a bit of troubleshooting direction here. Symptoms are that you’ll turn the key and the starter will click once. Hook up another car to jump and the starter will turn over, but slower than normal - sounds like it’s low on amperage. Running a the gold battery from Autozone - the old one was less than a year old but they just replaced it this morning under warranty (even though it tested fine).

Alternator also tested fine on their machine, and I see 13.7-14.2 on the Ultragauge while idling.

So if battery and alternator are OK, I’m thinking it might be one of the following:

1. Parasitic draw on the battery that draws it down while parked so that it can’t restart.
2. Bad ground that only gets completed once I’m hooked up to a second vehicle.

I’m hesitant to think that the starter is the issue, since it fires up every time when being jumped. I checked the ground to the body coming off of the wire at the negative terminal and the alternator, but I’m not seeing where the other ground point is to the chassis or the block.

If anyone can provide some troubleshooting steps regarding my two suspected problems above (or another direction) I’d really appreciate it! I’m on vacation this week and unfortunately don’t have access to a laptop. If you have questions please let me know.

 

Just had this same issue this past weekend.

Mine was the battery connection. The positive side cable was too loose and I had used a lead spacer. After I smacked the spacer with a wrench it started right up. Yesterday I replaced the OEM battery cable connectors with mil-spec connectors and ring terminals on the cables. Works a treat now.

 

Battery cables really seem ok but I’ll double check them.

 

The factory battery cable clamps are often notoriously just a little bit loose, especially the Positive.

Somewhat like humroot, I used my Vise Grips to squeeze and slightly deform the clamp so it isn't quite round and it fits snugly now.

 

The mil-spec connectors are really nice. Tight fit and room for two connections. I did have to purchase a crimp tool for the ring terminals, so if anyone is in the Charlotte area, you can borrow mine.

 

Got it. Anything else you’d check besides battery terminal clamps?

 

@humroot which connector did you use for the positive

 

Could it be a poor connection from the positive terminal to the starter itself? Or where the neg cable lands on the alternator bracket? The first one is unlikely since it's starting with a jump but maybe all the extra juice it's overcoming the bad connection. When you jump it, are you connecting to both battery terminals or the positive and a ground point on the engine itself?

 

Maybe it’s a weak connection to the starter, but I don’t think so - once it’s hooked up to a donor car with jumper cables, the starter turns just fine.

I was (and I now realize this) incorrectly jumping by connecting directly the positive to positive and negative to negative battery terminals between my truck and the donor car. Whoops.

 

You could double check the "poor ground" theory by disconnecting your negative battery cable and then connecting one end of a jumper cable to your negative battery terminal and the other end to your engine block, a sort of "jump start yourself" kind of setup. If it works the issue would be somewhere in the battery cable or terminal.

I have loose battery terminal clamps too, I put a small, thin strip of copper around the battery terminal to take up the slack, seems to be working fine after a year. The tricky part is not loosing it when I disconnect the battery (which is often...you know how it is).