Another No Start!

[darestie]

I don't know what it is with my truck and cold weather but they don't like each other. Went to start my truck, Wait to start light came on, sounded like the grid heaters were firing up. As soon as the wait to start light went out all power completely died. No power locks, windows. When I reset the key, nothing happens, like the battery is unhooked (it's not). Brand new industrial 1000CCA battery, only 1 month old. If someone could give me a somewhat thorough runthrough of what and where to check for power, I would be extremely thankful. I am horrible with electrical work.

[dpuckett]

Check your connections- if something is loose, it will show up in cold weather. Sounds like you have a loose pos or neg cable connection- clicks off when load is applied.

Dan

[darestie]

Hmm, sounds simple enough. I know when I replaced my battery, I was having problems getting the clamp to tighten. I ended up using shims, I really hope it's that simple. I have to wait til the morning when I can get back to my truck. Thanks Dan.

[Philip]

There are to black heavy gage wires coming off the positive teminal of the battery. About 6" from the battery there is a splice in each wire. Check those splices. I had one go bad a couple of years ago. My truck acted the same way then.

[darestie]

What do the two wires connect to? How did you fix the splice?

[Mark Nixon]

Those 2 smaller black wires are the main power to the grid solenoids.
If you're losing ALL power, they aren't the whole issue.
I'm thinking more like a main terminal connection at the battery, positive or negative both, or the next larger red terminal off the positive battery end, the one that has the squarish connector @ 6 inches from the battery terminal end.

You'll also want to verify continuity at the fusible links.

Don't discount the smaller ground that runs to the core support from the negative battery cable, either.

Mark.

[darestie]

Man you guys are good! turns out the the lead on the positive battery cable is worn in the center. Even though I used washers on the bolts in order to get it to clamp around the battery posts better, it still was a little loose. I was messing with it and realized that when I wiggled the battery cable, the under hood lamp was coming on and off, indicating a bad connection at the battery. Since Dodge decided it would be fun to have lots of wires and fusible links coming directly off the positive lead, it would be a lot of extra work to just replace the lead. I bought some flat, thin, copper strips from sears. I'm going to sand the surface with some coarse sand paper, apply electrical grease to both sides, and then wrap the copper strips around the battery post, adding some thickness to it. Hopefully the leads will clamp down nice and tight. Thank you guys for all the help.