So knowing me, I probably left my cargo light on in my truck when I got home Friday night, I didn't drive the truck over the weekend, so of course Monday (yesterday) morning the battery was dead. Had someone come jump me, and all lights came back on, but couldn't get the truck to start yet, key would turn, but all it would do is click, was trying for about 30 minutes with no luck, and I had to give up to go to work.

So this morning my boyfriend went out to try and jump it for me, said the key would turn but nothing would happen, no lights or anything. He hooked up the jumper cables and gave it about 10 minutes, said all the lights came on but the key wouldn't turn. I went out and the truck is definitely in Park, it's not anything with my steering lock preventing it from turning, and the key itself is fine. I just can't figure it out.

I have an automatic 1997 ram 1500 5.9L v8

 

Try wiggling the shifter/steering wheel, to see if it will allow the key to turn......

 

Tried doing both, neither worked unfortunately

 

Were you having any trouble with it previously?

Likely is just a coincidence that it failed now..... battery voltage shouldn't have anything to do with it. Might be time to pull the covers off the steering column, and see if anything obvious presents itself.

 

Never really had an issue with it starting, but I would notice every once in a while if I cut the wheel all the way over and THEN pressed the gas to move, truck would shut off, I would have to throw it in park, start the truck again, and I just turn the wheel back a bit and it would be fine. It has happened maybe 3 times in the course of a month and a half, and always cutting it to the left.

 

I suspect that too is unrelated, probably more due to P/S pump overload.......

 

I figured as much for that, but I'm at a loss for why this suddenly changed in the span of 10 minutes I'll consider anything. I'm a little laid up from an injury at the moment, but I'll try to get someone to come check out the steering column see if anything shows up. Friend of mine suggested my issue with it not starting even after half an hour yesterday could be if the battery "froze", but I feel like if something like that would've happened, it would've been when the truck sat for 8 days in much colder temperatures.

 

A discharged battery has a much higher freezing point than a charged battery...... I run into that here in Michigan far too often..... It's gotten to the point that I put any batteries that aren't going to be doing anything over the winter down in the basement.

Do you have a different key you can try? Maybe shoving the key in/out a few times?? I will grant you, the timing is rather odd.

 

That makes a lot of sense actually, would explain the issues I was having yesterday with trying to get it charged and started again.

Unfortunately I only have the one key, tried pulling key out just a hair as well, and pretty much every trick I could think of to get the key to turn.

 

Time to tear it down then. Sorry.