I had the starter tested and it was determined to be bad. Replaced it and the truck started smoothly as expected. The following morning during cold temps. I turned the key to start and I heard the starter engage the gears with clicking sounds and truck did not crank. Turned to off, then to start again and truck started smoothly as expected. Before I replaced the started the crank and turnover sequence was very laborious; delayed crank.

Any advice for troubleshooting?

 

Swap the starter relay for any other relay that is similar. (horn relay?) See if that changes anything.

 

I did that when I originally determined to have the starter tested. I did a little more research and went out this morning to "listen" better. It appears to be an engagement problem with grinding between the starter and ring gear. But, when I try the second time it starts with no grinding as you would expect it to start.

 

Hopefully you aren't missing a few teeth in the flywheel, because that would cause an engagement problem every time it happened to be in that position. You should be able to pull the starter and rotate the engine to check the flywheel. Also, "new" starters are usually rebuilt, if you buy aftermarket. It could be bad too.

 

I replaced the "new" starter with another one and that fixed the problem. The 1st new starter seemed to have an EMF tolerance issue. Starts first try every time as normal. Thanks for the reply.