Hello all. Went out to my 96 1/2 ton big 6 standard shift today and turned the key only to hear a single loud click. The click is coming from the starter relay on the passenger side fender next to the battery. I jumped the relay to try and start the truck and it still just clicked...sounded pretty loud and you could feel the click on the fender. My question is, bad relay or bad starter/solenoid? A new starter/solenoid and relay will be here in the morning. How tough is the starter to replace? It looks like I have plenty of room to work. Any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Randall

 

the relay is a common failure. to bypass it use a heavy guage wire and connect from incomming batt. cable to out going batt. cable, if it cranks over, replace relay

 

I did that and it didn't turn over. It just clicked once. I guess it's probably the starter.

 

For the starter. It's on the passenger side hooked to the tranny bell housing. I just replaced mine and it took all but 10 minutes. If it's clicking then that would mean it's getting power and it's working fine, unless it's just like one click.

I had a problem where I would turn the key and it would just click over and over again, well it turned out being a wire that's clips to the starter had a dirty contact and would just slightly jiggle off so i would have to crawl under there and push it back on, eventually I just replaced the wire altogether and have had no problems since.

 

Sure the battery's not dead? If you jumped the solenoid and got nothing its that or the starter

 

it's not the battery, it's the starter and the bottom bolt twisted off when i went too remove it...it's off to the shop now.

 

Just went throught the same thing on my 95. Ended up being the small wire on the starter. The metal tab the wire clips onto rotted off. Replaced the starter in about 10 minutes.