OK, so last night the rain stopped and a late night delivery came up so I used it as a test run for the 1500.
Leaving my place it fired up just fine, got to the pickup location at it shut off of fired up just fine and at the delivery location it shut off and fired up just fine.
I stop by Walmart on the way home and was in there about 20 to 25 minutes and when I come back outside and tried to start it, it did the clunking thing again. (Starter engaged, made the clunking sound of the Bendix hitting the flywheel and trying to turn the motor but wouldn't turn over the motor and the lights dimmed.)
After cycling the key four or five times from the off position to the start position, no reaction except the clunk of the starter engaging but not turning over the motor, I finally got the motor to start and was able to get home.
This morning I get up and try to start it because I had to go to work and back to the same thing. (Starter would engage, clunk of the Bendix trying to engage the flywheel, engine wouldn't rotate and the lights would dim)
​​​​​​ so I got under the truck and tap the starter with a hammer with no result. I checked all the cables just to make sure and they were all tight and still no difference.
​​​​​ I finally got under the front of the truck, took my breaker bar and rotated the motor by hand. When I did that then tried to start it, the motor made about three quarter rotation and then stopped again and the lights dimmed.

I'm starting to now wonder if it's not a problem with the starter or the electrical system but some sort of mechanical problem with the rotating assembly itself.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

If you could turn the engine with your pry bar without too much trouble, engine is likely fine. Think I would be inspecting the flexplate/ring gear for damage/problems though.

If this is another one of the cheap rebuilt starters...... That would be something to look at as well.

 

Well, I did find out what's going on with it but I wasn't able to post because I've been busy trying to fix it.
​​​​​After this morning went locked up on me again, I decided to test the theory that the battery didn't have enough cranking amps to deal with the compression like someone mentioned before (forgive me, I can't remember the screen name of who mentioned it).
​​​​​​ so I removed all 8 of the spark plugs, removed the relay for the fuel pump and put the key in the start position to see if the starter turned over, and it did.
at that point, I was very happy. I thought I had found the problem.
​​​​​​
​​Then I walked around the front of the truck and found that a bunch of water had come out of 3 cylinders on the driver side.

For the life of me, I have no idea how the truck was acting the way it was, I never had a blown head gasket or a cracked head for that matter, act like that. Everything about what I was doing was screaming a starter issue.

but apparently not. Live and learn I guess. Just something to keep in mind from now on for future reference.

 

Well ain't that a kick in the pants. I never even considered that being a problem. Did you have any overheating issues? Misfires? Running bad?? Loss of coolant?

 

I wouldn't have either!
I had no misfires, no overheating and it was running rough. I did have a little bit of loss of coolant but I had just installed a new water pump and attributed the loss of coolant to possibly not getting the gasket sealant quite right. And honestly, I had been chasing a mystery leak around the water pump looking for my reason of missing coolant, lol!

Guess I found it, lmao!

Had this not been said, I wouldn't have even thought about removing the sparkplugs to take the compression out of the equation.

​​​​​

 

So are you going to just deal with the head, or yank the motor?

 

Replacing the head, gaskets on both sides and the intake gaskets.
Im planing a full rebuild around March after I get the dually engine rebuilt.

​​​​​​I would have just pulled the motor, but I have to have a truck for my job, so that's why I'm going through route that I am.

 

Makes sense. Keep us updated on progress, and what you find.

 

Definitely!

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