Cold no starts....

No I didn't mean that, just if it were disabling it. I tried jumping it tho and it didn't change anything. This is NOT a power issue. My battery is good and I have a nice new battery gauge to monitor it. I also have the second new alternator in a while and have thoroughly made sure it all works fine. The starter just started doing this and only did it on really cold mornings, normally I would wait a minute or so and it would just start. Yesterday when leaving school which is a 45 min drive (which I have done everyday in this truck) it just would not start. After about 20 minutes of letting it sit and trying multiple times, it just worked, a little bit of a slow crank but only cause I wore down the battery trying it. As soon as the motor cranks it starts. Today it will not crank at all.. Lots of battery power. So that is where I sit.

I was actually planning on fixing a coolant leak today because it has now developed a nice leak but now I can't move it to the garage................

wonder if you dont have bad flywheel?

Well I pulled my starter I'll have a look and see what I can find out tomorrow in day light. Can you see the flywheel without the starter? Thing is when it did start it seemed completely normal everytime.

Zac

I agree that it could be the ring gear, but most of the time you can hear a horrible sound of gears grinding when this happens. Another thing to look at is the starter solenoid itself, you say it wont spin the motor when it's cold. Perhaps the lube in the solenoids itself is causing a bind when cold not allowing it to fully engage.

I only mention this because I have rebuilt honda and toyota starters and used a little too thick of grease on the plungers and ran into the same problem. My last honda would do this at anything colder than 15 degrees.

Sounds like a bad solenoid to me. Replace it, and the starter should engauge fine.

Thanks, it seems like that may have been the problem to me as well. Now question, is the starter engaged when the gear moves away from the starter? (Solenoid is CONTRACTED) or the other way around? The solenoid seems to be moving freely altho it has been inside over night so it could have warmed up. I am going to get a new solenoid tomorrow unless its worth just cleaning and lubing it but I think I'll just replace it again lol.