I have 1998 Ram with the 5.9 liter. When starting I get the tick, tick, tick, sound of a bad battery or a bad solenoid, I have had my battery checked, replaced my terminals, replaced the starter, and still get the sound. Before changing the starter it would take several times trying to start before it actually would, after changing the starter it will start after one or two tries and it only happens every once in a while. I can go three or four starts with no issues. Also sometimes when I do have this problem and it does start it won’t idle and die. Any suggestions?

 

if you've checked your battery under load and it's supplying enough current, then i'd look at the cables. make sure you have good battery cables and starter cable going to the starter. check to make sure you have good grounds going to the motor. there should be 1 at the back of the motor (i think it's on the passenger side) and one up by the alternator.

HTH

welcome to DF!

 

Also try cheacking your relay it could be on the way out

 

Like Steve said check your wiring. It may look fine on the outside but I've had to repalce one before because when you cut it in the middle its corroded to hell!

 

should be a large fuze box on the drivers side up past the batter..open that up and pull all the fuzes and see if there is any electrical corosion on them... if there is its a sighn of possible bad contacts somewhere in the elec system.. i had that happen to me one day after washing the truck and cleaning up the engine bay with a hose... got water in that fuz box and blew about 4 of them..replaced them and let it completley dry before starting again and works fine.. good lukc and welcome to DF!

 

Thank you all for the replys, we had a warm day here in Michigan yesterday 34 degrees and I have had no problems yet. I will check the fuse box though, maybe with all the cold weather I have had condensation/ice build up. As a little testimony on how much Dodge rocks, I put my truck into a 3ft ditch last night to avoid 1 car parked in the road and 1 car in the ditch. anyone that knows, west Michigan is coverd in snow. I had snow up to the bottom of my wheel wells. I dropped it into 4wheel low and walked out of the ditch like it was nothing. Man I love my truck!

 

Well there is no snow here in Texas, but I know what you mean in a slightly different way, I run over crap all the time on my truck, I go over medians, and through small parking lot barriers, I can't do that on my other car. I love my truck too [sm=happybounce.gif]