Turn key,starter hits, instant power loss

[BLS2.3]

Truck info: '95,2wd, 2.3l,5spd,185k. I've had the truck for about 3 months, no problems at all.

Tonight I got home from work & parked, went inside for about 45min. Came back out to run to the store, Get in the truck & everything seems normal... dome light on, key in ignition & the bell is ringing. Turn the key & at the same time I hear the starter catch the flywheel, all power is lost & I hear a ticking from the dash, sounds like its coming from near the hood release. It did this 4-5 times. After this the dome light was real dim & slowly got brighter until at or near full power. The ticking from the dash also got faster at the same time and continued after the key was out.

Any thoughts? Seems similar to the bad grounds I had in my Mustang a while back.

 

[FlyingFatass]

An almost similar thing happened to me as well. I would try to turn it over, the starter clicked, and suddenly everything lost power and it wouldn't come back on for several hours. Turns out that my batt was just low on juice and it had to be jumped.

 

[martin]

Sounds like a bad connection, somewhere.

 

[BLS2.3]

Any idea where all the grounds are? I'll start with them.

 

[BLS2.3]

OK, I just cleaned all the grounds I could easily get to & charged the battery. Batt terminals, @ rad support in front of batt, to frame directly below batt, to firewall by EGR, hood to pass. fender (clips) & cab to frame under pass. door (clips). The ones to the block & head were hard to get to & looked to be "well protected from corrosion" (oily). Seems like I should be able to find one from the box to the frame but I didn't see one.

It runs, at least for now.

 

[envious8420]

have that battery and charging system checked out, sounds like a soft failure to me.