It does sound like a Starter Solenoid.

 

I know you said your Volts guage was droping to like 9 but have you put a voltmeter on the battery to see what it is really droping too. Stock guage isnt very accurate. If its the starter soloniod sticking it shouldnt drop much below like 12.3 or so when it happens. If the voltage barely drops at all I would suspect a bad ground but you said you checked all the wiring right?

When this happens I would try checking the voltage at the battery and at the starter.

 

am i the only one wondering if you ever went and got the pizza?

it sounds like its electrical to me. id check all ignition-related fuses and relays first, see what the battery does while its cranking (voltmeter). then try the starter/solenoid

 

I checked the battery with a voltmeter also and it did drop to about 9 volts when cranking. Thats why i was initially thinking the battery was bad.

Oh and yes i did get my pizza

 

hmmmm, something is seriously drawing the battery down when cranking then

 

I had a truck at work, kick my a$$ for about a week. Some times it would start fine, then I could turn the key and nothing. Lights in dash worked and it just wouldnt do anything. If you had a scantool that will allow you to see ignition1 voltage, you can watch it while you are trying to start it. I bet it drops down to around 2 or 3 volts. Switch the relay and if that is it you will be able to tell whether it is fixed or not.

 

Could i just monitor it with a voltmeter at the output of the relay?

 

yeah, i guess you could. put test leads into terminals 87 and 30. hook a fuse onto one side and then hook your meter up to it. Its just as easy to switch the relay out, and test start it a few times.

 

Well its been fine all day now so im not going to mess with it, but if it happens again im gonna try swapping out the relay

 

I went to start it today and it just made a horrible grinding sound. So i drop the starter to find this.



I put my spare starter in and everything seems fine so far. Gonna try to just weld up the old one so i still have a good spare.