1987 Ram Pickup Starting troubles

[adrenalin2k4]

My father-in-Law has a 1987 Ram Pickup with the 5.9L engine.

The thing is in remarkable shape. But, this morning he got in it to start it. Zip, Zilch, Nada, Nothing. I went over to take a look at it and it is actually with the starter/ignition. The starter appears to be in good shape with good connections. But, when i go to crank it, i can here the relay mounted to the drivers side fender well click, but that is about it. i looked at the ignition madule and seems to be good as well. The battery is good with what appears to be good wires coming from it. I am really puzzled with this thing.

He has an 1980 Winnebago that had the same problem and after changing almost everything that we could, we finally gave up and installed a push button starter in it. I am afraid, i may have to do that with this truck. not unless, one of you good people could help me remedy this problem.

adrenalin

[edbrycem]

if it has a solinoid on the stareter try tapping it w/ a hammer. also you could try jumping the starter itself by using a screwdriver crossing the pos. and grd. together. its not the safest but it works. If its not to difficult to pull the starter out jump it out of the truck or take it in and have it checked.those are the things that I would do, assuming the battery is good. Also the basics-cleaning the battery posts and connections to assure a good connection.

[adrenalin2k4]

Well i was able to figure out what was wrong with it.

I decided to go ahead and start from the ignition and work my way down to the starter.

The ignition turned out just fine as well as the starter relay on the right fender well. I also check out the ballast resistor it turned out to be good too. I then redid all the connection on both battery terminals to ensure therw was good contact.

I checked and retightened the connections at the starter. While i was down at the starter i decided to go ahead and bump the starter by bridging the connection with a some alligator clips and a push button switch that i had in his Winnebago.

After bumping the starter just once i got in the cab and decided to crank it to see what happened. Well it started right on up. I started it up several times to be sure all was O.K. What i found out was that the commutator had a dirty spot on it about 1/16 wide. I used a bit of super fine sandpaper to clean it up. All is well and the starter is now in good shape. The thing about it was the fact that was to only spot on the commutator/bendix that was dirty and not allowing the brushes to make contact.

So this has been resolved.

Thanks for the reply.

adrenalin

[Stevo2]

Your Winnebago may have a bad neutral safety switch or the wiring to it. This provides a ground for the starter relay. Most people will never know that the switch is even there.