Won't Crank
 

Weirdest thing appears to be going on. A month ago, I shut off the engine and do some shopping. About 30 min later I get in an turn the key on and nothing. My interior lights work, my headlights work, my stereo works, my fan works but when I turn the key. . . nothing. No crank. Not even an attempt. I turn everything off except an interior light, and watch it as I try to start the engine. Nothing. The interior light doesn't even go dim. It remains nice and bright. I get out and pull off a battery cable, wait a few min and replace and wallah, it starts just fine! I chalk it up as a one time freak failure.

A month later. . . same thing happens. However, this time just pulling the battery cable off and on doesn't do the trick. I ended up pulling all the fuses and the relays in the engine bay off and then on. I did this a few times including the battery cables and finally after several minutes it finally started. . . and has been starting flawlessly for a few days. (I use my truck every day)

I have a fairly new battery, & clean terminals. I do have a manual tranny and during the no crank issue, I repeatadly pumped the clutch to possibly re-activate the clutch start safety switch. Also, no codes are showing up.

I'm running out of ideas on what's the cause of this intermittent failure.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
---H

Could be the linkage out of adjustment (for the shifter). Try smacking up on the shift lever or putting it in neutral next time to see if it starts. This is my truck's new trick as well.

could be neutral safety switch, you can play with park/neutral and the edges of their stops to see if that helps.

also try tapping on the starter with a hammer. sometimes that helps.

next get more technical with a voltage tester and see if you've got power flowing through the starter solenoid relay stuff in the pdc, and see if power is getting to the starter solenoid (small wire) and the starter motor (big wire).

it might be starter time. if all else fails, you can remove it and bench test it, or take it to an autozone type place and they'll bench test it for free. bench test is to simply apply 12 volts to the solenoid and the starter and not let it jump off the bench.

check grounds around engine, ive seen one be loose especially over ps pump and wont crank.

Sounds like the starter is starting to go, thats what happend with mine. Get it tested

Agreed on both, My 1st gen ram you cant start unless it's in neutral.

Also could very well be the starter, make sure the positive wire isnt curroded or broken off or loose for that matter.

Great responses, thank you.