Hi all,
I have a '99 4wd half ton with the 360. A few weeks ago my truck started acting weird. After it sat for a few hours I would turn the key and it would crank and start just fine, but then stall within a couple seconds.

After it stalled, the only way to get it to fire was to open the throttle up. The truck would crank over like it always had and rev up, but as soon as I let off the gas, it would stall. If I kept my foot on the gas (around 3k rpm) for 30 seconds everything would be fine again. The truck would idle and drive great.

This happened three or four times over the past couple weeks. Last night it did the same kind of thing. After I got it started I drove the 5 miles back home and let it sit for 8 hours. When I went to start the truck this morning it wouldn't even crank. All I heard was a clicking noise.

So my question is, is it time for a new battery? Or should I look into something else. Thanks.

 

i would get the battery tested

 

If your battery tests out good you may want to look at replacing your terminal clamps. My 01 did this too me twice. The first time I put a cheap set of clamps on from Walmart and then a year later in came back. After putting two other know working batteries in and have the alternator check for correct output I put a set of gold terminal clamps on from the parts store. Fired right up and ran great.

 

you could pick yourself up a load tester and see if the battery is any good... I have one like this and I used it a lot just last week when I was dealing with battery issues. Mine turned out to be a bad battery, it was only 9 months old but I cooked it boosting another magnum for an hour

 

Thanks guys I got 'er going. I should have just looked under the hood right away and I would have seen the problem. The negative battery terminal was so full of corrosion that it wasn't making a good connection. When I hit the key I could see smoke pouring out of the neg terminal area, and it was hot to the touch. I took a wire brush to it and she fired right up!

 

well good! sometimes the cheapest solution is the best

 

Might as well replace that battery now. With a post seal failure it's just going to continue losing capacity and corroding that terminal until you take it out of service.

 

Id do that ASAP... Wouldnt want to get stranded eh?

 

I guess it depends how far out of town you get on a regular basis. Imagine stopping on the hard pull on the way to stRangely and not getting it started again. That'd suck.

 

Yeah but, the truck cranks just as fast as it did when I bought it, I'd hate to throw away a perfectly good battery. So maybe I just have to clean the neg terminal every 6 months or so, I can deal with that.