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Mystery Starting Issue


kpiztheniz

Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2017
Messages
8
Vehicle Year
1993
Transmission
Manual
So here's the story.....I started the 1993 4.0 manual after work and drove my about 20 miles or so on the highway to my buddies house. When I went to leave an hour or so later, the truck wouldn't start. When I initially opened the door, the chime started and the dome light came on, but when I tried to turn the key and start the truck, everything immediately shut off (dome light and door chime stopped working) and the key wouldn't even click like it was trying to start. I waited a few minutes, opened the door again, the chiming started and the dome light came on......weird. I tried to start it, and same issue as before, everything immediately went dark.

So here's where it gets even more weird....I figured it must be the battery so I need a jump. Before I did that though I figured I'd try it once more. So I opened the door and the chime and dome light was, yet again, somehow working again on it's own. The truck fired right up! I guess third times' the charm, but I'm hoping I can actually pinpoint what may be wrong here so I don't get stranded somewhere.

One thing to mention as well is that the radio lost all my presets, like the battery was disconnected throughout this process which it wasn't

Thanks everyone for any advice you can give me! Let me know if you have any questions on what I did, etc. I literally did nothing other than pop the hood as far as "troubleshooting" goes, the third time it started like normal. Very Mysterious!
 
Battery cables, terminals are dirty/corroded at the connections
At battery end and other ends, you need to clean both ends of each battery cable

What you describe is no mystery, when a battery cable connection is corroded it can only pass a few AMPs, i.e. chime and dome light
When you activate starter motor that cable must pass 80AMPs, and can't, so it heats up and passes no AMPs, or very little.
Repeated attempts and the heat up/cool down can clean off some of the corrosion, and connection will work again.
But strictly temporary.
 
Last edited:
Battery cables, terminals are dirty/corroded at the connections
At battery end and other ends, you need to clean both ends of each battery cable

What you describe is no mystery, when a battery cable connection is corroded it can only pass a few AMPs, i.e. chime and dome light
When you activate starter motor that cable must pass 80AMPs, and can't, so it heats up and passes no AMPs, or very little.
Repeated attempts and the heat up/cool down can clean off some of the corrosion, and connection will work again.
But strictly temporary.
X2

Sent from my QMV7B using Tapatalk
 

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