starting problem

[neeya]

sorry if this is a little long but it has confused the hell out of me and my friends with everything we have tried. ive got a 96 ram 1500 5.9. battery tests at 12v cold like it should but when you turn the ignition on it sounds like the battery is dying. everything dims and sounds like it wants to die, that is if it doesn't just go out completely to start with. when you try to start it, it does nothing. after trying to start it a few times the possitive battery post and the connecter thing get extremely hot, along with the positive wire getting warmed up a bit too. checked all the connections and they look fine. pulled every fuse and they're all fine. ran a code reader through it and it said nothing was wrong. cleaned battery connections and made sure they were tight and no change. on a side note i did have a 460 watt amp connected to the battery bridged to a solo baric up until it stopped starting, then i pulled it. don't know if that might have screwed with something or not. when the power wire from the amp was on there and the truck didn't want to start i would try to start it and a little puff of smoke came off the possitve connection of the battery if that might mean something to someone. that was at the beginning of all this before i pulled the power wire off. we just recently tried jumping it and it would turn over and instantly die on us. what we've been able to think of so far as possibilities is a short somewhere, something to do with the starter, amp might have screwed up something but doesn't seem likely, or some other stupid thing we have no clue of yet. ive heard of something similar happening to someone and it was the black wire going into the relay box. if anyone can tell me yes or no on that one, that would be nice. also leading up to it not starting at all it would occasionaly act dead the first time i tried to start it (acted like no power whatsoever) and id let it sit for a second and tried it again and it started fine. any help as to how to test for anything or replace or mess with anything would be extremely helpful.

[Austin8214]

check all of your grounds. did you say that you were able to get it to crank when you jumped it? Did it start? Did it start then die when you disconnected the jumpper cables?

[hupkwondo]

Sounds to me like the starter is going bad and drawing too much current. First, I would check the battery connections and make sure everything was clean, bright and tight. Then check the connections on the starter for the same conditions. Make sure the battery cables (both positive and negative are good - not cracked) and check the negative cable to make sure its got a good connection to the engine block.

If the positive battery connection starts getting hot or smoking, its an indication too much current is being drawn - I'd take the starter off and take it to Advance or NAPA and have them check it (they check them for free).

Greg

[neeya]

don't know if this helps narrow it down anymore or if its the same old crap. usually i would just take off the positive connection when i was trying things but today i took both the positive and the negative and it seemed like i was going to have fulll power back after i put them back on. i turned the key on up to before you start it and all my electronic crap was turning on like it should. the battery was maybe a hair under what it should have been but was close enough. i tried starting it, though, and all there was was one loud click and the battery went back to its usuall wanting to die behavior. the positive connection looks somewhat corroded but i've had worse on different vehicles and they worked fine. plus a bunch of people have looked around at it and they havn't said anything so it makes me think it's not that bad. the negative just has a few dings but otherwise pretty clean. could that positive connection be screwing with me? i know sometimes that happens but not sure if that's the case here or not. if it is i will feel like slapping myself.

[Austin8214]

If you could answer the questions i asked above i would be able to help you out more.

[ImMoRTaL]

I had a similar problem. I fixed it by cleaning my battery contacts, wires, and reattaching everything very firmly.

[neeya]

turns out that i all i had to do was take sandpaper to the connections and get them nice and shiny again and it fired right up. should have been one of the first things i tried but it slipped my mind. thanks for all the help though.