Dammit!

The other day, I replaced the starter in the truck. It was crapping out at the worse times.

Saturday, I took the dogs to the park, came back, and decided to check out the farmer’s market down the street that started it’s season this month. It was kind of sparse. Still, I got some cookies I didn’t need. I also checked out the thrift store in the same parking lot. A little sparse. They had a couple interesting pieces for cheap, including a decent desk. They had nothing I could live without so I headed out to the heat to go to look at a few cars I have my eye on at a local dealer.

Got in to the truck and ….nothing.

Dammit. Doing the same damn thing. I dug in the back of the truck for a screwdriver, climbed under the truck, shorted the contacts and it spun right up. Aha! It’s the starter solenoid. Derrick on Vice Grip garage calls them the steal me switch. I knew Ford and Dodge had them, but didn’t think they still did. Turns out, mine does. It’s on the drinker side fender and looks like this:

Pretty crusty. I felt like an idiot. The weekend this thing was failing, I could’ve shorted the two big leads there and done the same thing. DOH! Lucky for me, I figured having one on hand was a good move. So I bought it when I bought the starter. So I drove home, opened the hood and went to it. Simple to install:

Worked like a charm. Seems like I’m back in business, for now at least. The old one looks pretty tough:

Wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that it’s original equipment. Also would not be shocked to discover it was the terminals being crusty. Tough to say without testing it.

We’ll see how it treats me this week.