No Idea...

Son's in the Army & we kept his truck here at home (1998 Extended cab TRD 6 cyl) & drive it a couple times a week; bout a month ago I went out to start it up, turned the key & NOTHING, no clicks, no dash lights, complete silence...checked the battery/cables, good to go, came back bout an hour later, cranked right up, no probs until yesterday afternoon, did it again, then cranked back up 1.5 hrs later. I know it's a shot in the dark, any idea what else I might check, don't want to take off & not be able to get it started again...thanks in advance

 

neutral safety switch? i dunno sounds weird.

 

or is it standard?

 

Automatic, should have posted that; pal said maybe some type of relay switch, but I'm a dunce when it comes to mechanical stuff, hence the plea for help lol...it's for sure weird, has 186K on it...

 

intermittent electrical is always hard to pin down...

 

Loose battery cables, dirty terminals?

 

Thanks fellows, I'll start there...

 

Knock on the starter with a mallet or something and see if the truck starts up.

 

NO lights equals no power. I would start at the battery like others have stated. Ignition switch could be the cause as well.

 

True. I should read more closely

 

No worries. It's possibly that truck might start with no dash lights but my experience is if the lights don't come on, most likely it's a power issue.

 

Get the battery tested, pull it out and use another car to take it down to the auto parts store where they can property test it. If it checks out I'd be looking at the terminals and cables next, check all your grounds as well. Should be 3, one from battery to firewall, one from battery to starter and one from back of the engine to the firewall.

 

Start with the battery first. Have it tested. Btw, kudos to the kid!!

 

as stated above, I would check the battery post to cable connections first then move on from there. If it is beyond the easy checks, you are going to need to get a wiring diagram for that year make and model truck and trace out the power feeds from the battery. I just looked at the ones I have and I was surprised to see that the power feeds from the battery are different based on the motor installed. Some models feed everything through the ignition switch and the same model with a different motor has power feeds that bypass the ignition switch. With the wrong diagram you could be chasing your tail.

One thing they all have in common is the the ALT heavy duty fuse and the AM1, AM2 fuses. The ALT feeds the AM1 and AM2 fuses. These are located in the engine bay fuse box. The ALT fuse is bolted in by the way. I have only seen one AMx fuse cracked... the symptoms were similar until the load on that a circuit was enough to where the crack couldn't pass enough current and it became a permanent open