98 dakota electrical problem

[cjwest]

hello to all. my dakota will not start. i turn the key, get power, then turn to start and it clicks one time and no power at all. no dinging, no radio, no gauges, nothing. i can take the negative battery cable off for a few minutes, reconnect it and then i have power but it does the same thing. i have verified the battery is good. i have cleaned and or replaced cables and terminals. i have checked all main fuses. it has done this before but i removed the negative terminal, reconnected and it started up fine. i think it has done it 3 times now, but this time i am having no luck. any help is greatly appreciated.

[steelerguy]

Originally Posted by cjwest

hello to all. my dakota will not start. i turn the key, get power, then turn to start and it clicks one time and no power at all. no dinging, no radio, no gauges, nothing. i can take the negative battery cable off for a few minutes, reconnect it and then i have power but it does the same thing. i have verified the battery is good. i have cleaned and or replaced cables and terminals. i have checked all main fuses. it has done this before but i removed the negative terminal, reconnected and it started up fine. i think it has done it 3 times now, but this time i am having no luck. any help is greatly appreciated.

When you say that you have verified the battery as good, do you mean you checked all of the cells with a battery checker or took it in to like an Autozone for a load test?

If you just measured for 12 volts (for instance), that means very little. If there's any charge in the battery at all it will read 12 volts. Your truck is started by amperage not voltage. Take the battery into an Autozone first & have them run a load test. Get their Duralast Gold if you buy a replacement. Has a 3 year full replacement warranty.

[cjwest]

thanks steelerguy for replying. yes i did take it in for a load test and it checked out fine. i did however find the problem. it was two positve terminal ends, the fuse box end and the battery terminal end. somehow they had both worked loose just enough to sometimes connect and sometimes not. i guess when i was wiggling the cables, mostly negative, i must have wiggled both positive and negative to get a temporary good connection. lessoned learned.....check both cables and all charging related connections. thanks again for all who read and replied.

cjw