Well , I yanked the harness off her / thru it on the bench / peeled that wrap off it and found a 1/8 hole/puncture thru the red jacket of the red wire - The hole was corroded , but the wire looked good.

Well , I took a Knife and split the jacket and peeled it back. It was all corroded under there.

SOO- - It filled with water and then managed to find ground - Well enough to crank on it's own - I don't have PATS - So it cranked while washing , but didn't start.

Oh well , I don't need a battery after all. I had some broken wires after cleaning it up , so I rosin cored the sh^t out of it, the heat taped it three times/ then wrapped all the wires SEPARATELY with E-Tape.

No problems now/ at least it didn't happen in the Grocery Store parking lot ehhh..

 

A few pics after putting the harness back on yesterday -



Frame Ground -



Anti Corrosion Bullsh^t -



Yea , it's holding it's charge now..

 

To the OP - I believe the 2000 is a little different. This pic might help , but it's from a 98. I do have an 01 in the drive here tho. The battery harness has a "3" Grounding points . Top ground is on the firewall behind those two short red hot wires on this model. That's a duel nut stud that carries 3 ground wires in total/ make sure one didn't get left out when you reconnected. That's easy to do , the wire could be hiding on you.

The others are down below - (Frame Rail) (Bottom starter bolt)

 

jbrew,

Its funny that the starter looks all rusted to crap but the sticker looks brand new..... Does that red stuff really work? If it does I might pick some up and try it out.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

Hey Jbrew,
What is up with starter's, alternators etc. etc.
No Joke, spent this past weekend installing "new" (aftermarkets-length to fit)pos/neg wire harness's from the battery then out from there. Mine were shot underneath going to the starter.
Neg. cable = coated cover was, split, cracked, & some areas with coating missing, and the wire was corroded with very bad frayed/blackened wires.
Pos. cable, was about the same but not nearly as bad.
Reason for change was I had to put a new alternator in. It was having intermitten voltage problems which effected my power accessory's. Every now and then my battery light on the dash would flicker and twice it stayed on. After the 2nd time, I decided, to check the Alernator output, N/G
With the truck running, it was only putting out 12.5 volts (most of the time).
I also checked the voltage reg (while attached to ALT., ohm reading was OL checking on test points A & F. On the new alternator, the test points should give you a reading of 3 to 4 ohms.
The brushes, springs and connection's were all good, something went bad in it !!
Having no power (or ground) problems now.

The previous owner must have busted off the harness braket that holds the neg/pos starter wire harness's and just jambed it up underneath and clipped the ground wire to the frame. (Idiot)
By correcting that ground wire, everything is working properly now.

Reason I mentioned this, I see in your picture that you have 2 "MEGA" fuses in your power distribution box next to your starter relay. We both have the same truck (yr. & engine). I only have 1 MEGA fuse on the bottom connector and a straight connection bar on the top connector.
Did the previous owner do this to my truck or is there a reason your truck has one on the top wire connection. Did you add a MEGA fuse connector to the top connection?

Thanks,
TJK

 

That's Carquest Stuff - First time using it myself on the outside. The says to re-apply every 4 months. I used it inside the cab for the grounds behind the kick panels and my big grounding straps for my amp (Cab to Frame) a little over a year ago and it's lasted.



That starter - I don't think it's a year old yet - yea it looks like hell , but it has a life time warranty