It reared its head last night when i was leaving a club. I went to start it and it cranked over one time and stopped. The voltmeter went down to about the 9v mark and that was it. Then i tried it again and it cranked right up. I got home, shut it off, and tried again and it started no problem.

Today i drove to blockbuster and back and had no problem. Then i went to leave to pick up a pizza and it cranked over was and that was it. I tried it 5 or 6 times and did the same thing each time. I didn't have another vehicle here to jump it so i hooked up my battery charger and did a quick charge for about an hour, even though the readout on the charger said the battery was fine. So i try it again after an hour and it does the same thing. So from there i started checking all connections for tightness/corrosion and didn't find any issues. For the hell of it i tried starting it again. First time it did the same thing. The next time i turned the key it cranked once and stopped, while still holding the key i tapped the gas just for the hell of it and it started cranking again and started up.

I immediately drove to autozone and had them load test the battery and check the alternator. They are both almost brand new but i checked them anyway. The battery tested fine.

This is the weird part. While testing the alternator i brought it up to 2k rpms and one time during that the voltmeter dropped down to about 12v for a second then returned to normal, then it did it again while it was idleing. It never did it again on the drive home.

 

Is the engine cranking OK or is it cranking slowly? If it's cranking OK, you can rule out a battery/charging system problem, and maybe start checking items like fuel pressure, spark, etc. Could be your fuel pump is starting to take a poop, or it could be as easy as the fuel pressure regulator leaking causing the engine to run rich/flood. You can easily check the fuel pressure regulator by pulling the vacuum line off of it and checking for the presence of fuel. If fuel drips out of the line, or there is a strong smell of gas, the fp reg is leaking and needs replacement. It is located in the center of the driver's side fuel rail.

Another thing I've seen a bit recently (at least here in Jersey), is bad gas. Usually the creates more than just starting problems but runability problems also, although I did have one car a few years ago where the gas was actually evaporating in the fuel rail after the engine was shut off, creating a hard start condition much like the one you described.

 

i think you misunderstood what im saying. It literally cranks *one time* and then acts like the battery is dead.

 

Yea, I totally misunderstood, sorry about that...(damn, all that typing for nothing lol). How about an ignition switch issue? Or you could also try swapping the starter relay, or there may be a problem with the battery, such as a bad cell or terminal that is broken internally. After the one crank, does the starter click at all?

 

right now im leaning towards an intermittent starter problem. As far as i know its the original starter, and now with 11:1 compression its working a little harder than its used to. I've got another one here that im going to swap in after work tomorrow and see what it does.

 

Hope that's the fix, especially since you already have the part. Keep us updated on how it turns out.

 

Hey, after it starts the one time, what does it do on the second try??? Do the lights in the dash light up and you turn the key and just no starter engagement???

 

The lights in the dash will light up every time. Its just like the starter isn't getting enough power to crank.

Im getting more and more convinced that the starter solenoid is grounding out.

 

go to your underhood fuse block, and switch out the IGNITION 1 relay with another one not needed for the truck to run. See how that works and let me know

 

I'll give it a shot when i get out of work. The problem is that it doesn't do it all the time, so it'll be hard to tell if its fixed.