DD60 Starter Issues

I thought you were questioning it. I highly doubt it’s locked up, probably a broken wire at the selinoid/ relay on firewall, outside, up above the steering column

 

Whats the battery voltage at right now?

Running the batteries down in voltage means your starter draws more amps. More amps run them down even faster and burns up solenoid contacts. They can arc together and catch fire too. If its not dead batteries i will guess its the solenoid. Much cheaper than a whole starter. You can usually bring a tired starter motor back to life by sanding the commutator and scraping the graphite out from between the grooves. If the solenoid can be dismantled you can file up the copper contacts. But they solder most of them together to make you buy another these days.


Ether is a two man job btw. Whiff it in only when engine is cranking so its spread across several cylinders. Hosing the aircleaner then jumping in to crank is a good way to take the ring lands off one piston. Or knock some teeth off the bendix or flywheel.

 

This I did not know, as it would almost start and then die, or go right back to cranking.

Is my assumption correct that it's not the engine being locked up? Remember, there is no movement whatsoever coming from anything in the engine bay, except for me hearing the relay when I try to start.

 

If the engine is locked youll hear the relay click and the starter kick the bendix in the flywheel but it wont budge. The two sounds will be in rapid succession but are separate.

Only a click from the solenoid means either current is not flowing past the solenoid into the starter brushes, or it is flowing past the solenoid but the starter has failed.

You can put a test light or multimeter on the starter motor lug and have someone crank the key but it could give a false positive. Enough voltage may pass through the solenoid to light a bulb but not turn the starter motor. The sure fire test here is to jump the starter with a big set of cables or a breaker bar if possible. A solenoid is just an electrical drawbridge. If jumping the starter motor lug directly cranks it over, solenoid has failed.

Anyway dont get burned or light the truck on fire trying this, as i wont warranty your work! Extinguisher handy and have the tools on hand to pop the battery cable off or garden lopper it JUST in case.

You still havent posted your battery voltage. They could be dead. Step 1 is battery volts.

 

My fault, battery voltage is 12.58, which should be enough as it's started on that voltage before.

And that's what I thought, when I try to start it, I hear one click, and then nothing. Thank god it's the starter...

 

It still could just be a weak wire or connection anywhere between batteries and starter.

 

So I just ran a diagnostic test on the DDEC and got three codes, low coolant, something else about coolant, and Aux. Engine Shutdown #1 or #2, Input Active. My coolant level is fine (it throws out a coolant error if the truck isn't running), but could that last one be the issue thats stopping the starter from engaging? I tried researching its definition and couldn't come up with anything.