Well this is what I did today. I had the battery recharged- did that last night- they said it was good and they put a load on it after testing. Still absolutely nothing.

So I went under and quadruple checked by connections. They all seemed to be seated properly. On this aftermarket starter there are three places to connect the wire to the solenoid. I put it in the one that was vertical, like on the original starter. This afternoon I decided to put in on the horizontal one below the solenoid post. It did not start, however it did something completely different. It started flashing the S and M and low oil and battery lights came on. It also didn't recognize that I was shifting in different places until it would eventually lock me into park. But at no time did the dash acknowledge I was in P, R, N, D, etc... then it locked the key and I could not get it to release at all. The only was to disconnect the battery. I don't know what I did but besides that it was still the same--- it did NOT engage the starter.

 

I am currently stuck in Fort Knox, Kentucky and will have to leave in 10 days- half of which I will be indisposed all day!

 

XYZ switch. If the computer does not get a signal from the XYZ switch that the truck is in either park or neutral it will not send power to the starter via the solenoid. The tip off is that you are not getting the PRND321 indicators on the instrument panel LCD. I'm guessing the red lights next to PRND321 on the shifter surround are not working either.

As a stopgap try putting the shifter in the neutral position and see if it will start then

 

CHECK IT OUT- UPDATE

So I went back after writing that last post and reconnected the solenoid to the original position on the aftermarket starter (vertical).

Then I went and tried turning it over, it felt like it wanted to start BUT then everything went black. Nothing worked. So I turned if off and waited a second and it did the same thing. SO I am think its a battery this time .

I went to autozone and the machine wanted to charge it for like 10 mins and then it said 100% good battery. I took it back to my truck, forgot that the alarm was on and reinstalled the battery and the alarm went off. I put the key in the door to turn it off, and shut the hood, defeated I turned the key one more time. It fired right up.

However, the m and s were still flashing, I drove it a bit and remembered that my battery was loose so I parked it and turned it off. I went to turn it back over and everything went black again and it would not let me take the key out of the ignition. SO I pulled the cables off the terminal, pulled the key out, put the cables back on, rolled up my window, and tried again, everything went black.

That is where I am at? The battery is 3 months old, reads as good- though it has dropped three times in the past week below the point 60% and its sloshing around. My only confusion about it being a bad battery is that NO ONE at autozone or oreilly's or the mechanic shop on post wanted to say that it could be a bad battery they just kept saying the machine says its good... Tomorrow I will try to borrow a battery to see it that is it. Any suggestions?

XYZ switch is one. CPS is another. Anything else?