Backstory, parked the truck end of last week, went to fire it up Monday to take it in for an alignment. Very slow to crank, like the batteries were low. Batteries showed 12.2v but I hooked up jumper cables and no change. Said screw it and left it alone. Got home fired up my generator and hooked up the battery charger. Some hours later, batteries show full. Try to fire and same very slow crank.
Started checking wires. One of the positive cables had a spot where it was worn through from rubbing on a ziptie and some of the wires were broke. Kept looking and found the ground wire from the start to the frame was also worn and half broke off at the terminal. Pulled it and the one positive battery cable off to inspect and repair if possible. The ground wire was able to be cleaned up and got a new terminal end. Grabbed a new positive cable but it was too short.
I hooked everything back up with only the single positive cable and checked voltage. 12.5V at the starter lugs. Starter does nothing. Power at every connection, but the solenoid seems to not even engage. I checked for any bad fuses, checked the breaker for the ignition, nothing was tripped or bad.
I double and triple checked to make sure Im not missing any wires that didnt get hooked back up, but thats almost what it feels like. On the ground wire from the starter to the frame, is there any other wires on the frame side that I might've missed?
Obviously Im missing the additional power wire, but I was sure that the engine would atleast crank over w/o the 2nd wire.
2002 Peterbilt C15 no crank, no start.
Discussion in 'Trucks [ Eighteen Wheelers ]' started by HillbillyDeluxeTruck, Jul 2, 2025.
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The wires going to/from the magnetic relay are the small ones. Ignore that there is one battery in the pic.BoxCarKidd Thanks this. -
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Ok
This is the model of starter I have. If you look at the red arrow pointing to the small wire on top of the solenoid/relay there is no power at that wire, even when turning the key. Everything else that I believe is supposed to have power, with the key on, does. I get zero voltage drop when the key is turned. This makes me think the solenoid is smoked and not energizing the starter. Correct? -
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Jump the terminals from the wire I circled and the wire opposite of it. If it cranks then you have a switch or relay problem. If it doesn’t crank put a starter on it. The wire you highlighted should be the signal wire from the switch
exhausted379, High Stepper, BoxCarKidd and 2 others Thank this. -
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